


Percy Jackson and Time Traveling and the Sea of Monsters

by BlooBlu



Series: Percy Jackson: Time Traveler [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, BAMF Percy Jackson, Jewlery related stimming, Percy Jackson has Anxiety, Percy Jackson has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Time Travel, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:08:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 50,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27046993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlooBlu/pseuds/BlooBlu
Summary: Part two of my 'Percy Jackson dies boringly as a 27 year old with repressed and barely-diagnosed issues and gets sent back in time' au.Totally self-indulgent, make sure to read the first fic first or this largely won't make sense.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase & Percy Jackson, Percy Jackson & Grover Underwood, Percy Jackson & Tyson
Series: Percy Jackson: Time Traveler [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1965973
Comments: 15
Kudos: 135





	1. Meriweather's gym goes up in flames. Again.

Percy Jackson had been waiting for a very specific dream to come to him for the past few weeks, and was starting to become what some might call ‘antsy.’

Of course, as with most things in his life, Percy didn’t exactly experience being nervous the same as other people. Blame it on the ADHD-dyslexia combo, past trauma that technically hasn’t happened yet, or a whole slew of other undiagnosed issues he has - the fact is that he’s just not a regular kid. 

He’s a time-traveling half-blood, (or demigod, if you prefer) now officially a teenager for the second time in his life. Lives? Existence. 

This is all to say that Percy was maybe worrying a little too much about his best friend and Grover, a satyr who is currently on a very dangerous and potentially lethal quest if he didn’t do something about it soon. He’d already lashed out against Tyson a few times this week and was more than a little snippy around anyone who spoke to him. 

Look, it’s not like he  _ asked  _ to get sent back in time and suddenly be responsible for preventing all of the awful things that had ever happened to himself and his friends as teenagers. Well, technically he did, but that was under confusing and mysterious circumstances where the consequences were not properly explained to him with a lawyer present-

Well, anyway, back to the current story. 

It was an entirely normal night when he went to sleep, and an entirely normal day when he woke up. It was what had happened in between that night and that day that had him in such a good mood today. Because while seeing your friend running away from an unseen monster (that he secretly already knew was a practically blind cyclops) through a town in Florida before getting cornered in a bridal store would normally be upsetting, for him it meant the quest was on. 

He awoke with a start, but mostly out of shock from the final, loud strike of lightning seeing the end of his dream. Storms were never really his favorite. 

When Percy opened his eyes though, the sky was clear and bright outside, sunshine filtering through his bedroom window. Distantly, he was aware of his mom calling for him to get ready for school; right. Last day of school, then he was off to Camp Half-Blood. For however long that would last until he and Annabeth would sneak off to save their friend from the horrible fate of being eaten by carnivorous sheep. Or a cyclops. 

Crawling out of bed, finally, Percy dressed normally: jeans, t-shirt, tennis shoes - and half a dozen less-tacky charm bracelets with actual metal charms on them that his mother had gotten for his birthday. He could tell she didn’t really understand his sudden interest with them, or why he insisted they all have leather cords, (too much metal just felt… wrong) but she was supportive anyway, like the amazing mom she is. 

He kept his old necklace, though; right beside his camp one. The plastic charms were worn and showed clear signs of being bent a little too much, but it just didn’t feel right to get rid of it. Besides, his choice of accessories would never get him any more weird looks than choosing to befriend Tyson had. (And still does.) 

The big guy was a bit weird by mortal standards, but Percy knew Tyson just wasn’t built for living in the mortal world. As a cyclops, not to mention a son of one of the Big Three, he was powerful. Too powerful to live in a world full of fragile things, like refrigerator doors… and regular doors. It was sad that his half-brother had been abandoned by both their dad and whoever his mom was - made to live on the streets in a cardboard box. That had been the first thing Percy fixed upon starting school at Meriweather college prep; Tyson had been a charity case for the school, them allowing him to attend and providing him with food and clothes. 

Then Percy had found him and made fast friends with the brother he’d missed so much over the past year. Eventually, they’d started a semi-permanent sleepover thing, where Tyson spent almost all of his time with the Jacksons. It’d been a bit awkward to explain to his mom after realizing she could see through the mist making it look like he actually had two eyes pretty easily; thankfully she trusted him, and only made sure to keep the vases and other fragile items locked in a cupboard. 

It was great having a brother again, even if no one else knew they were brothers yet - the cyclops had practically imprinted on Percy at the first show of kindness. (It was sad, but at least he could be the first good person in Tyson’s life, if no one else would.)

All of these thoughts may have distracted him brom eating the blue eggs and pancakes his mom had made, and as always she picked up on it right away. 

“Percy, are you all right?”

“What? Yeah, fine.” 

“Is it school, or…” 

Well, he might as well be honest about this much. “Had a dream about Grover last night. I think he’s having trouble on his search. I’m just worried for him, is all.” 

“I wouldn’t be too worried, dear,” she said. “Grover is a big satyr now. If there were a problem, I’m sure we would’ve heard from . . . from camp. . . .” Her shoulders tensed as she said the word  _ camp. _ Was he forgetting something, again? Or was it just because Tyson was sitting ten feet away in the livingroom trying to tie his shoes? 

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I’ll tell you what. This afternoon we’ll celebrate the end of school. I’ll take you and Tyson to Rockefeller Center - to that skateboard shop you like.”

That  _ did  _ sound tempting, but… gods,w hat was he missing here? Percy had a questionable memory on the best of days, and trying to think back to the last fiteen years into his past (or would it be fourteen, now, starting his second year at camp? Or sixteen, counting his last year spent in the past, too?) was a nightmare. He’d even gone online to look at meditation tutorials, and other weird techniques for remembering stuff, but he just wasn’t wired for sitting still and patiently. Half-bloods were all born with ADHD and heihgtened battle senses, keeping them alert and on their toes in a way that gave them an edge in monster fights. 

“Wait a minute… aren’t we pacing for me to go to camp tonight?” And Tyson, but he and his mom had sort of been dancing around that topic fot the past few months, ever since the first time it was brought up. Monsters aren’t allowed on camp grounds, but Tyson is a pretty big softie with a god’s blood in him. (Though he hadn’t said that to Sally directly, just mentioned the possibility.) 

She twisted her dishrag. “Ah, dear, about that . . . I got a message from Chiron last night.”

“What’d he say?” 

“He thinks . . . it might not be safe for you to come to camp just yet. We might have to postpone.”

_ Oh.  _ His heart sank. Right, Thalia. She was poisoned. How had he forgotten something  _ that  _ important? All he’d remembered was going to save Grover from  Polyphemus , and less about their main quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece to save the one thing protecting camp from monsters. And with Tyson right in front of him - they’d been able o get into camp just fine last year, despite Tyson’s heritage! Gods, Percy was so stupid. 

“But, if there’s something going on at camp, that’s all the more reason for me to go, isn’t it? I’m a son of one of the Big Three, I could help. And there’s no way I’m letting Annabeth go to camp by herself if there’s danger!” 

His mom gave him an all-too-knowing smile, and he was a tiny bit embarassed - was he that obvious? It was just - he was so used to gushing about his (former) girlfriend/fiance/wife/whatever they’d never actually had a real ceremony, that it was a hard habit to just stop cold-turkey. Percy’s mother had given him the same ‘I know you’re crushing on her and it’s adorable’ look dozens of times over the school year. 

Note to self: find an apple sometime in the near future and catch Annabeth unaware so she’ll catch it without thinking. 

“Percy . . . I’m very, very sorry. I was hoping to talk to you about it this afternoon. I can’t explain it all now. I’m not even sure Chiron can. Everything happened so suddenly.” 

Just then, the clock chimed the half-hour. Sally looked relieved. 

“Seven-thirty, dear. You should go. Tyson looks about ready.” 

And his brother was. Ready, that is. He was patiently waiting, practically vibrating with excitement and probably only just barely restraining himself from crushing Percy with a hug. Then again that was sorta the big guy’s M.O. most days anyway.

“...yeah. Alright, mom. See you after school,” Percy said, walking out of the kitchen and gently guiding Tyson out the front door. 

As he stepped outside to go catch the Number Two train with his brother, he saw something out of the corner of his eyes. Just a silhouette of a person, that quickly melted away into the shadows. He smiled softly - looks like he’d be seeing his wise girl soon, after all. 

It was a fairly normal day at Meriweather to start with, as sour as he knew it’d turn soon. Spotty memory or not, it was kinda hard to forget almost dying from flaming-dodgeballs to the face. 

Meriweather college prep is a ‘progressive’ school, however, meaning it was a bit different from other schools just in general. Like the beanbag chairs instead of desks, and lack of real grades, and all the teachers wearing jeans and rock-concert t-shirts. It almost reminded him of camp, with the lax attitude of it all; but then again camp was lax more in the ‘it’s okay to stab someone a little bit in sword practice if you apologize and didn’t kill/maim them’ way, not the ‘you can eat in class and wear graphic tee’s as a form of self-expression’ way. 

The only thing that wasn’t so great about Meriweather was that the teachers were a bit trigger-happy with praise and platitudes for all the students regardless of how well they actually did, making it feel like actually achieving something wasn’t as special. But he wasn’t there to achieve much, anyways. Most of his life-plans revolved around helping raise the next generation of half-bloods after himself, and encouraging Annabeth endlessly to pursue her dreams of being an architect. 

Percy had thought of possible mortal careers for himself quite a bit, but nothing really felt right. He’d been a swim coach for a few years, and even a life-guard, but it felt a little awkward to contest with his dad for the lives of less-than-bright mortals; seriously, who doesn’t know about under-tow, and who lets their kid just play in the ocean by themselves? With how much humans pollute the ocean, you’d think eventually they’d catch on that some of those hurricanes and tsunamis weren’t accidents caused by nature, but an angry god enacting his revenge. (He may or may not have been fired once for punching a guy who just threw his empty beer cans off a cliff and into the water below…) 

There was one other thing he didn’t like about Meriweather: Sloan. Sloan wasn’t big or strong, but he acted like it. With eyes like a pitbull and shaggy black hair, and how he always dressed in sloppy clothes that were still designer brands somehow, he was the perfect image of ‘rich kid bully’. What a tool. 

He smiled, remembering earlier that day when Sloan had tried to wedgie Tyson fondly. The young cyclops had panicked and swatted Sloan a good fifteen feet away into a swing set. (Which probably hurt a whole lot, which was what he was smiling about.) Afterwards Sloan had said some pretty mean things, and threatened Percy with a beat-down in PE when he stood up for his half-brother. Seriously, how could anyone be mean to Tyson, he was just so kind and soft-hearted - there wasn’t a mean bone in his body. 

The poor guy had started sobbing when Sloan called him a freak; Percy promised to buy him an extra peanut butter sandwich at lunch and reminded him that even if others were mean, they’d always be friends. It calmed him down, but Percy knew it could be hard to believe one nice person over a crowd of awful ones. 

Tyson sniffled. “You are a good friend. Miss you next year if… if I can’t…” 

Yeah, it wouldn’t surprise him if no one had talked to the cyclops about whether or not he’d be invited back next year as part of the community service project. 

“Don’t worry man,” he replied. “You’ll be fine, I promise. I won’t let anything bad happen to you - that’s what friends do, right?” 

“Yeah… friends.” 

As their last day progressed, they had more ‘finals’ to take. They were pretty ridiculous as far as tests went, but the son of Poesidon appreciated not having to put too much mental effort into things. Especially since his mind kept wandering to his friends. To camp. To Kronos.    
He tugged on his leather necklace, (the charm one) enjoying the comfort the pressure brought him. Part of him was a little embarrassed at the near-constant red lines on his neck from pulling the cords too harshly, but most of his mind was always too preoccupied to worry about what others thought. 

In social studies, Percy mostly stared at a picture he had tucked into one of his notebooks. It was Annabeth visiting Washington D.C., her hair held back in a bandanna, as she stood looking very smug in front of the Washington Monument. Like she’d designed it herself, or something. He knew she could do better than just a tall white tour, though, Annabeth was a true genius of architecture. 

It was then that Sloan chose to be a complete jerk and snatch the photo right off his desk, eyes going wide as he stared at it. 

“Who’s that? There’s _ no way _ she’s your gir-” Sloan began

“Give it back!” 

Percy was not going to let some stupid litle mortal kid mess with him, but he also didn’t want to risk tearing the photo. So, focusing on the water bottle that was poking out of the bully’s bag, he let the water inside gain speed for a moment before popping off the cap and spilling all inside Sloan’s bag. (It was a skill he had become very adept at when looking for a distraction, this year. It only worked with cheaper plastic ones, usually, but it was still effective.) 

Sloan yelped, staring down at his bag as if to ask  _ what the hell?  _ Before yelling about his phone and gameboy and trying to save whatever was inside. Percy snatched the photo back - which the bully had dropped in his panic. 

As Tyson and he were leaving class, he heard someone whisper his name. He knew it was Annabeth, and that he should probably find a quiet place to talk to her, but he also couldn’t leave Tyson and all those mortal kids to go into a closed - off gymnasium with three giants in disguise. He hadn’t been formally introduced to them, exactly, but he knew the three big, weirdly-named numbskulls Marrow Sucker, Skull Easter, and Joe Bob were secretly after him and just waiting for a chance to pulverize him for being a demigod.

The gym uniform at Meriwether is sky blue shorts and tie-dyed T-shirts, unfortunately. Percy would be more embarrassed if they actually had to run around where anyone could see them, but Meriweather had a pretty versatile indoor-gym for all of the… not very athletic activities guised as PE. 

Tyson asked him to stand guard while he changed clothes in the weights room which was normal enough; the guy had a ton of scars he didn’t like talking about, and got really upset when people made fun of him while he was changing. Like, rip-locker-doors-of-their-hinges upset. 

When they got into the gym, Coach Nunley was sitting at his little desk reading Sports Illustrated. Nunley was probably seventy or so, with bifocals and no teeth and a greasy wave of gray hair. He moved entirely too little for any gym coach, but Meriweather was ‘alternative’, afterall. 

Matt Sloan said, “Coach, can I be captain?”

“Eh?” Coach Nunley looked up from his magazine. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “Mm-hmm.”

Percy was made the other captain, but the choosing didn’t really matter, since the only ones willing to be on his team were Tyson, Corey, Raj, and a dozen other kids who got bullied relentlessly by Sloan and his ‘friends form Detroit.’ 

Matt Sloan spilled a cage full of balls in the middle of the gym. 

“Scared,” Tyson mumbled. “Smell funny.”

“They smell funny?” Percy asked lowly. 

The cyclops nodded. 

“Okay. Don’t worry about it too much, alright big guy? We’ll get through this together, yeah?”

“Yeah… Percy my friend…” Tyson said, not looking much better for the words his friend had spoken. Percy wouldn’t feel much better if someone just said everything would be fine in the face of six giants fighting them in dodgeball, either. 

The huge kids on the other team started throwing balls at the speed of sound, chuckling when dents in the wall and floor were made, just barely missing the people in the gym. Percy felt around for Riptide, which he’d clipped to the hem of his shorts for a lack of pockets. Thank the gods for whoever decided an ancient sword for demigods needed to be disguised as a fountain pen and not a wallet or something. 

Slowly, the giants started taking their true forms - easily eight feet tall and probably several hundred pounds. Maybe even a few Tons. 

Matt Sloan dropped his ball. “Whoa! You’re not from Detroit! Who. . .”

The giants all laughed, one of them throwing a dodgeball to slam against the doors outside, effectively blocking off one of the only exits. 

“It is time to die, Perseus Jackson, son of the Sea God!” 

Eugh. He hated it when people called him Perseus. 

“Let them go! They have nothing to do with this! You just said it’s me you want, right?” 

“What, and lose our tasty morsels? No, Son of the Sea God. We Laistrygonians aren’t just playing for your death. We want lunch!”

...Well, let it be said he’d tried for peace. 

Percy uncapped Riptide, instantly feeling a surge of relief at the feel of a sturdy leather grip under his hands, and the comforting weight of a celestial bronze weapon. 

One of the giants waved his hand and a new batch of dodgeballs appeared on the center line - but these balls weren’t made of red rubber. They were bronze, the size of cannon balls, perforated like wiffle balls with fire bubbling out the holes. The students all screamed and cowered, though they probably only saw Sloan’s friends getting ready to throw some Molotov cocktails around, and coach Nunley didn’t even look up from his newspaper. 

Internally sighing at whatever story the news would end up making out of this, Percy stepped towards one of the nearest giants - they were all still holding their firey balls of death, which was unfortunate but he’d deal. Probably. Some of the kids were running for the lockers, and barely dodged out of the way with Tyson’s help when a flaming cannonball flew at the doors; the locker rooms were also shut with a slam of magic from a wave of one of the giant’s hands. 

“No one leaves unless you’re out!” Joe Bob roared. “And you’re not out until we eat you!” He launched his own fireball. 

Percy changed course to charge at the one un-armed giant for the moment, barely ducking and rolling out of the way of two more fireballs. He cut Marrow Sucker right across the chest as he was reaching for his second ball, causing the monster to explode in a cloud of sulphur. Most battles were harder now, in his prepubescent body with much less muscle and height than he used to. At least he was finally adjusting to having a smaller body, after a whole year, but he was sill less physically powerful in every way but his water-based powers from his dad. 

Just across the center line, two hungry giants were glaring down at Percy. 

“Flesh!” they bellowed. “Hero flesh for lunch!” They both took aim. “

Percy needs help!” Tyson yelled, and he jumped in front of him just as they threw their balls. And caught both, almost effortlessly. 

_ That’s my brother,  _ Percy thought fondly, with maybe just a hint of smugness, as the cyclops launched both balls bach at their senders, who both died with a cry of “BAAAAAAADD”, following their friends in clouds of sulphur and whatever other nasty substances. 

“My brothers!” Joe Bob the Cannibal wailed. He flexed his muscles and his Babycakes tattoo rippled. “You will pay for their destruction!” 

The giant threw what was basically a comet at them, and Tyson barely had time to wack it away, sending it into the bleachers with a huge  _ boom  _ and crashing sounds. 

“Victory will be ours!” roared Joe Bob the Cannibal. “We will feast on your bones!”

The remaining two giants followed Joe Bob’s example, each hefting another ball and getting ready to throw them. With a stroke of genius, Percy yelled at the other students to get out of the way of the doors, just as all three fire balls were launched. Quickly asking Tyson to repeat his earlier move, the cyclops nodded and batted two of the projectiles back at the giants who threw them, leaving just one standing. The last ball blew a hole in the wall big enough for the other students to escape through.

“Everyone! Get out now,” he shouted. 

Completely ignoring his own advice, Percy charged Joe Bob - the last giant. The monster had yet to grab another fireball from the pile, and the half-blood quickly ended him. Gods, he needed a shower - the place was starting to smell awful. At least the other Meriweather kids, excluding Tyson, had been smart and ran through the hole in the wall, and if Percy was lucky, just went home. 

Suddenly, something told him to look to his right - and just as he did, the air shimmered and there shoot Annabeth Chase. Her face was grimy and scratched. She had a ragged backpack slung over her shoulder, her baseball cap tucked in her pocket, a bronze knife in her hand, and a wild look in her storm-gray eyes, like she’d just been chased a thousand miles by ghosts. 

Matt Sloan, who’d been standing there dumbfounded the whole time, finally came to his senses. He blinked at Annabeth, as if he dimly recognized her from Percy’s notebook picture. “That’s the girl. . . That’s the girl—” 

Annabeth punched him in the nose and knocked him flat. “That’s what you get for messing with giants. And my friend.” 

The gym was in flames. Kids were still running around screaming. He heard sirens wailing and a garbled voice over the intercom. Through the glass windows of the exit doors, he could see the headmaster, Mr. Bonsai, wrestling with the lock, a crowd of teachers piling up behind him. 

“Hey wise girl, not that I’m not ecstatic to see you, but maybe we can skip the heart-felt reunion for now and just run?” 

“Sounds good, seaweed brain.” 

“Wait! Where Percy going?” 

“Don’t worry Tyson, you can come with. Just follow us, okay?” 

The cyclops nodded, and Annabeth looked not very happy, but understood that they couldn’t exactly leave Tyson behind in all this mess. The three of them ran through the hole in the side of the building, just as one of the teachers finally burst through the gym doors, shouting after them. 

  
  
  
  



	2. The stupid hellride and mechanical bulls

While they were running, Annabeth pulled them off the sidewalk just as a fire truck screamed past, heading for Meriwether Prep. 

“Where’d you find him?” she demanded, pointing at Tyson

“It’s complicated.” 

“Do you even know what he is?” 

“Of course I do, wise girl. But he’s also… you know…” Percy trailed off, gently holding up the single bead on his camp necklace so far - the one with Poesidon’s trident on it. 

“You saw him get claimed? But one of the Big Three would never-” 

“No, not directly, I just sorta… know, you know?” 

She stared at him blankly. 

“Look, the point is that he’s here, and he’s not going anywhere. If Athena had a nymph daughter or something-” 

“That’s completely different!” 

“Is it? Tyson’s a complete softie, really.” 

“A softie who took down four giants with no problem. A softie who’s a  _ cyclops _ .” 

“That’s racist.” 

“You’re impossible.” 

“And you’re not even giving him a chance!” 

Tyson looked between them nervously. 

“Percy… this girl mean too?” 

“No, Tyson, she’s a friend - she just… doesn’t understand, is all.” 

“He can  _ talk? _ ” Annabeth looked a little disturbed. 

“Again, that’s racist.” 

“I talk,” Tyson admitted. “You are pretty.”

“See, wise girl? At least  _ some  _ of us can be polite to strangers.” 

Annabeth threw up her hands, exasperated. 

“You know what? Fine! We’ll bring the freaking cyclops with us to camp - then you can talk to Chiron or Mr. D about it for all I care.” 

Percy sighed in relief. He’d kinda expected that to be harder. 

“Thank you, Annabeth. I promise, you’re making the right choice.” 

She turned away, stepping out of the alley. He followed her, and Tyson did the same, with a little hesitation. Annabeth began looking up and down the streets, probably searching for any nearby mortals that might interrupt them, and spoke again as she did. 

“There’s a lot of bigger problems on our plates, anyway. Have you been having the dreams?” 

“I had one, about Grover.” 

Her face turned pale. “Grover? What’s going on with Grover?” 

“You first - what have you been dreaming about?” Still have to keep up some pretenses, after all. 

“Camp. Big trouble at camp.” 

Well, that was probably all he’d get with her worrying about their satyr friend. He generally knew what would be happening at Camp Half-Blood when they got there, he’d just been hoping for a better refresher. 

“Alright, well… Grover’s in trouble, but he’s not about to die, as far as I can tell. Someone’s chasing him around Florida. Do you know anything else about camp, though?” 

“I don’t know exactly. Something’s wrong. We have to get there right away. Monsters have been chasing me all the way from Virginia, trying to stop me. Have you had a lot of attacks?” 

“No, not until today. I think you can guess why.” 

“Yeah, you got a personal bodyguard.”

Tyson raised his hand like he was still in class. “Bad guys in the gym called Percy something . . . Son of the Sea God?” 

Percy and Annabeth exchanged a look. Probably best to go with a simple explanation for now, they were kind of in a hurry. Wise girl had started fishing in her pockets - for a drachma? Well, there was really only one way to get to camp from here quickly, but he didn’t like it. 

“Uh, Tyson… you know about all those Greek stories? Like with the gods and their children, with monsters?” 

“Yes,” was Tysons quick reply. 

“Well, they’re real. And still alive. Those bad guys back there were - uh - still can’t pronounce the word, but let’s just call ‘em Canadians. They’re like giant cannibals. And the gods that are still alive? They have kids, sometimes.” 

“Yes.” 

“Annabeth and I are half-bloods. The children of one god and one human. My dad is Poesidone, her mom’s Athena.” 

“Oh. You are son of Sea God? But then…” 

A siren wailed. The flashing lights of police cars caught their attention in the distance, even in bright daylight. 

“We don’t have time for this,” Annabeth said. “We’ll talk in the taxi.”

“Right,” Percy sighed. “The taxi…” 

Wise girl pulled a drachma from her pockets, holding it up in the air and chanting “Stêthi, Ô hárma diabolês!” before throwing it into the street. The ground seemed to ripple, and a familiar hellride appeared before them, with the crows of “Passage? Passage?” from one of the Gray sisters. 

“Three to Camp Half-Blood,” Annabeth said. She opened the cab’s back door and waved at him to get in, like this wasn’t the worst way to travel besides flight

. “Ach!” the old woman screeched. “We don’t take his kind!” She pointed a bony finger at Tyson.

“Extra pay,” Annabeth promised. “Three more drachma on arrival.” 

“Done!” the woman screamed. Reluctantly he got in the cab. Tyson squeezed in the middle. Annabeth crawled in last. This was going to suck. 

The Gray sisters were muttering and grumbling about who got to hold the coin from beyond the plexiglass divider. 

The one driving said, “Long Island! Out-of-metro fare bonus! Ha!” She floored the accelerator, and his head slammed against the backrest. 

A prerecorded voice came on over the speaker: _ Hi, this is Ganymede, cup-bearer to Zeus, and when I’m out buying wine for the Lord of the Skies, I always buckle up!  _

The cab sped around the corner of West Broadway, and the gray lady sitting in the middle screeched, “Look out! Go left!”

“Well, if you’d give me the eye, Tempest, I could see that!” the driver complained. 

“What! Why wouldn’t you give the  _ one functioning eye between you  _ to the one driving!” Percy shouted, heavily debating using one of the thick black chains that stood in place of seatbelts. 

“Wasp!” the third lady said to the driver. “Give me the girl’s coin! I want to bite it.” 

“You bit it last time, Anger!” said the driver, who must’ve been Wasp. 

“It’s my turn!”

“Is not!” yelled the one called Anger. 

The middle one, Tempest, screamed, “Red light!” 

“Brake!” yelled Anger. 

Instead, Wasp floored the accelerator and rode up on the curb, screeching around another corner, and knocking over a newspaper box. He’s pretty sure his stomach got left behind somewhere a few blocks ago. 

Next to him, Tyson groaned and grabbed the seat. “Not feeling so good.” 

“Oh, man,” Percy said, because he’d seen Tyson get carsick on school field trips and it was not something you wanted to be within fifty feet of. 

“Hang in there, big guy. Anybody got a garbage bag or something?” 

Annabeth didn’t react beyond an eyebrow raise at the  _ why in the world would you ever do this to me/  _ look he gave her. 

“Hey, you now they’re the fastest way to camp. Remind me, who suggested them first the last time?” 

“That was  _ different! _ We were running out of time to stop  _ World War III,  _ you know!” 

“Yeah, and this time it’s only Camp Half-Blood that might be going up in flames right now, not an emergency at all. You’re right, seaweed brain, we should’ve taken the bus.” 

“We’ve had famous people in this cab!” Anger exclaimed. “Jason! You remember him?” 

“Don’t remind me!” Wasp wailed. “And we didn’t have a cab back then, you old bat. That was three thousand years ago!”

“Give me the tooth!” Anger tried to grab at Wasp’s mouth, but Wasp swatted her hand away. 

“Only if Tempest gives me the eye!” “

“No!” Tempest screeched. “You had it yesterday!” 

“But I’m driving, you old hag!” 

“Excuses! Turn! That was your turn!” Wasp swerved hard onto Delancey Street, squishing him between Tyson and the door. She punched the gas and they shot up the Williamsburg Bridge at seventy miles an hour. 

The three sisters were fighting for real now, slapping each other as Anger tried to grab at Wasp’s face and Wasp tried to grab at Tempest’s. Finally Anger, who had the advantage of sight, managed to yank the tooth out of her sister Wasp’s mouth. This made Wasp so mad she swerved toward the edge of the Williamsburg Bridge, yelling, “’Ivit back! ’Ivit back!” 

Tyson groaned and clutched his stomach.

“That’s it, we’re going to die,” Percy groaned, twisting the gold-plated ring around his thumb hard enough to dig into his skin, maybe even leave a bruise, eventually. The accessories were still a better solution than any other coping mechanisms he’d used in the past, but he’s pretty sure that pain is just another grounding sensation for him. Gods knows what Percy would do if he started disassociating again. (Well, he still does from time to time, but nowhere near as intensely or often as he had been before getting some help. Even if most of it wasn’t from a professional, his friend’s advice had all been greatly appreciated during his Dark Days.) 

“Just be quiet, seaweed brain. The Gray sisters are really wise, they know what they’re doing,” she said finally, sounding nervous. 

“Yes, wise!” Anger grinned in the rearview mirror, showing off her newly acquired tooth. 

“We know things!” 

“Every street in Manhattan!” Wasp bragged, still hitting her sister. 

“The capital of Nepal!” 

“The location you seek!” Tempest added. Immediately her sisters pummeled her from either side, screaming, “Be quiet! Be quiet! He didn’t even ask yet!”

“Wha-,” it took him a moment to remember. Right, they knew where Grover was being held! “-tell me the location!” 

“Nothing!” Tempest said. “It’s nothing, boy!” 

“Tell me.” 

“No!” they all screamed.

“The last time we told, it was horrible!” Tempest said. 

“Eye tossed in a lake!” Anger agreed. 

“Years to find it again!” Wasp moaned. “And speaking of that - give it back!” 

“No!” yelled Anger. 

“Eye!” Wasp yelled. “Gimme!” She whacked her sister Anger on the back. There was a sickening pop and something flew out of Anger’s face. Anger fumbled for it, trying to catch it, but she only managed to bat it with the back of her hand. 

The slimy green orb sailed over her shoulder, into the backseat, and straight into Percy’s lap. He jumped so hard, his head hit the ceiling and the eyeball rolled away. 

“I can’t see!” all three sisters yelled.

“Give me the eye!” Wasp wailed. 

“Give her the eye!” Annabeth screamed. 

“I don’t have it!” he said.

“There, by your foot,” Annabeth said. “Don’t step on it! Get it!”

The taxi slammed against the guardrail and skidded along with a horrible grinding noise. The whole car shuddered, billowing gray smoke as if it were about to dissolve from the strain. 

“Going to be sick!” Tyson warned. 

Percy ripped off a piece of his tye-dyed gym shirt to pick up the eye, not trusting himself to remember to wash his hands before touching anything else again. The sisters seemed to instantly know he had it, somehow. 

“Nice boy! Give me the eye!” Wrath yowled. 

“Not until you tell me where!”

“Percy,” Annabeth warned, “they can’t find our destination without the eye. We’ll just keep accelerating until we break into a million pieces.” 

“First they just have to tell me,” he said. “Or I’ll open the window and throw the eye into oncoming traffic.” 

“No!” the Gray Sisters wailed. “Too dangerous!” 

“I’m rolling down the window.” 

“Wait!” the Gray Sisters screamed. “30, 31, 75, 12!” They belted it out like a quarterback calling a play. 

“Thank you,” he said, passing the eye Wasp, who shoved it into her empty eye socket like a contact lens.

Ignoring the rest of the world for a moment, Percy uncapped Riptide - being sure to keep it pointed towards the floor - before recapping it with the cap to the hilt of the sword. Annabeth looked at him bizarrely, before noticing that it transformed the sword back into a pen with it’s cap stuck on the end, to write with. Muttering the coordinates to himself to remember as he went, he scribbled the numbers on his arm as legibly as he could manage. 

When he was thrown to the side, he almost dropped the pen, and finally noticed that the car had spun a good few times before coming to a screeching, smoking halt at the base of Half-Blood hill. 

“Quickly!” Annabeth urged them out of the car, and he soon saw why. 

Camp Half-Blood was clearly under attack - the sounds of battle near and violent. 

Now, Percy wouldn’t say he had a vendetta against bulls, exactly, but there has been an odd number of less-than friendly confrontations between them and himself. The first time was the Minotaur he fought when he was twelve, (twice, now,) then there were the two mechanical bulls he was about to fight, (again,) and later on in his life as an adult, there was a very unfortunate… accident… during a ‘running with the bulls’ race that he, Leo, Frank and Rachel went to as a sort of mutual dare on his twenty-fifth birthday. 

Safe to say, he does not have a very good reputation with the things, living or otherwise. That’s why he was so glad to have a fire-proof tank in the form of Tyson when he was faced with the two fire-breathing bulls from Tartarus. Of course he’s confident in his own skills, but still. 

One of the heroes shouted, “Border patrol, to me!” A girl’s voice - gruff and familiar. 

“It’s Clarisse,” Annabeth said. “Come on, we have to help her.” 

He nodded, silently urging Tyson to come with by placing a hand on his brother’s arm and npt-actually tugging him along. The guy weighed easily two or three times himself - Percy’s pretty sure he couldn’t _ make _ the cyclops go anywhere, he just followed willingly because he was a sweetheart who didn’t believe that his half-blood friend could ever have bad intentions. Which was as sweet as it was sad. 

Clarisse would never have admitted it, but she was in some pretty big trouble. Her fellow warriors were scattering, running in panic as the bulls charged. The grass was burning in huge swathes around the pine tree. One hero screamed and waved his arms as he ran in circles, the horsehair plume on his helmet blazing like a fiery Mohawk. Clarisse’s own armor was charred. She was fighting with a broken spear shaft, the other end embedded uselessly in the metal joint of one bull’s shoulder. 

Uncapping Riptide, and sticking the cap between his teeth to save the time finding it late or trying to clip it somewhere without pockets, Percy ran towards Clarisse, who was yelling at her patrol, trying to get them into phalanx formation. It was a good idea. The few who were listening lined up shoulder-to-shoulder, locking their shields to form an ox-hide–and-bronze wall, their spears bristling over the top like porcupine quills. Unfortunately, Clarisse could only muster six campers, so he found a shield lying discarded in the grass and slid in to join the formation. He wouldn’t be able to directly fight the bulls, anyway - not without Medea’s Sunscreen SPF 50,000. He’d get burnt to a crisp, the exact opposite of how he liked to be. 

Annabeth ran toward them, trying to help. She taunted one of the bulls into chasing her, then turned invisible, completely confusing the monster. The other bull charged Clarisse’s line. The bull moved deadly fast for something so big. Its metal hide gleamed in the sun. It had fist-sized rubies for eyes, and horns of polished silver. When it opened its hinged mouth, a column of white-hot flame blasted out. 

“Hold the line!” Clarisse ordered her warriors. Whatever else you could say about Clarisse, she was brave. She was a big girl with cruel eyes like her father’s, and looked like she was born to wear Greek battle armor, but she had the heart of a warrior. Even he, as someone who had stared death in the face and told him to get fucked a thousand times, was hesitant to do this, and was more tempted to throw Tyson at the bulls to tear them to mechanical scraps. 

Unfortunately, at that moment, the other bull lost interest in finding Annabeth. It turned, wheeling around behind Clarisse on her unprotected side. He wanted desperately to shout something, but breaking the formation now just guaranteed failure in two ways. 

Bull Number One crashed into her shield, and the phalanx broke. Clarisse tumbled back and rolled to the side as the bull charged past her. Unfortunately the creature didn’t do so  _ before  _ blasting the other heroes with its fiery breath. Their shields melted right off their arms, and Percy almost got a nice melted-shield attachment to his body. Clarisse hadn’t looked pleased when he came running in his blue shorts and tye-dye, but he liked to think he’d helped at least a little bit, there. 

He lunged forward and grabbed Clarisse by the straps of her armor, and dragged her out of the way just as Bull Number Two freight-trained past. He gave it a good swipe with Riptide and cut a huge gash in one of it’s legs, but the monster just creaked and groaned and kept on going, albeit with a slight decrease in speed. 

“Let go of me, Percy!” Clarisse shouted, “Curse you!” 

Well, that didn’t sound very much like a  _ thanks for saving my life,  _ to him. Maybe she would’ve just been severely crippled, but still. 

He dropped her in a heap next to the pine tree and turned to face the bulls. They were on the inside slope of the hill now, the valley of Camp Half-Blood directly below - the cabins, the training facilities, the Big House - all of it at risk if these bulls got past them. 

Annabeth shouted orders to the other heroes, telling them to spread out and keep the bulls distracted. 

Bull Number One ran a wide arc, making its way back toward him. As it passed the middle of the hill, where the invisible boundary line should’ve kept it out, it slowed down a little, as if it were struggling against a strong wind; but then it broke through and kept coming. 

Bull Number Two turned to face him, fire sputtering from the gash he’d cut in its hind leg. Percy wasn’t sure these things felt any pain, but the bull definitely seemed pissed about the injury. 

Distantly, he heard Annabeth shout permission for Tyson to get through the barrier. Thank gods for the cavalry. Or in this case, the military-issue tank. 

Thunder shook the hillside. Suddenly Tyson was there, barreling toward him, yelling: “Percy needs help!”

The cyclops dove between Percy and the bull just as it unleashed a nuclear firestorm. The blast swirled around him like a red tornado, all he could see was the black silhouette of his body. 

But then the fire died, and Tyson was still standing there, completely unharmed. Not even his grungy clothes were scorched. The bull must’ve been as surprised, because before it could unleash a second blast, Tyson balled his fists and slammed them into the bull’s face. “BAD COW!”

His fists made a crater where the bronze bull’s snout used to be. Two small columns of flame shot out of its ears. Tyson hit it again, and the bronze crumpled under his hands like aluminum foil. The bull’s face now looked like a sock puppet pulled inside out. “

Down!” Tyson yelled. The bull staggered and fell on its back. Its legs moved feebly in the air, steam coming out of its ruined head in odd places. 

Annabeth ran over to check on him, but he wasn’t too hurt besides some scrapes and bruises. And a nasty burn alongside the arm he’d been holding his shield with earlier, but she passed him a canteen of ambrosia and in moments he was feeling much better. The taste of homemade chocolate-chip cookies sat heavily on his tongue. 

“The other bull?” Percy asked. 

Annabeth pointed down the hill. Clarisse had taken care of Bad Cow Number Two. She’d impaled it through the back leg with a celestial bronze spear. Now, with its snout half gone and a huge gash in its side, it was trying to run in slow motion, going in circles like some kind of merry-go round animal.

Clarisse pulled off her helmet and marched toward us. A strand of her stringy brown hair was smoldering, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Dammit, Percy!” she yelled at him. “I didn’t need your help, you hear? I had it under control!” 

Annabeth grumbled, “Good to see you too, Clarisse.”

“Argh!”she screamed. “Don’t ever, EVER try saving me again!”

“Clarisse,” Annabeth said, “you’ve got wounded campers.” 

That sobered her up. Even Clarisse cared about the soldiers under her command. 

“I’ll be back,” she growled, then trudged off to assess the damage. 

“Your welcome,” Percy muttered under his breath. “Pigheaded Ares kids…” 

He already had a bone to pick with the God of War, and the guy had cursed him in their last interaction, so Percy didn’t feel particularly inclined to be polite to the guy’s (rude and  _ very  _ pig-headed, just like their dad,) children. 

The whole side of the hill was burning. Wounded heroes needed attention. And there were still two banged-up bronze bulls to dispose of, which he was pretty sure wouldn’t fit in the normal recycling bins. Clarisse came back over and wiped the soot off her forehead.

“Jackson, if you can stand, get up. We need to carry the wounded back to the Big House, let Tantalus know what’s happened.” 

“Tantalus?” He asked. 

“The activities director,” Clarisse said impatiently. 

Oh, right. He’s almost forgotten. Tantalus was the one who’d replaced Chiron while he was being investigated for the poisoning of Thalia's tree. Speaking off - the pine really wasn’t looking good; its needles were yellow, and a huge pile of dead ones littered the base of the tree. In the center of the trunk, three feet from the ground, was a puncture mark the size of a bullet hole, oozing green sap. 

...Gods damned Luke Castellan. 


	3. Brothers forever

On the surface, things didn’t look all that different. The Big House was still there with its blue gabled roof and its wraparound porch. The strawberry fields still baked in the sun. The same whitecolumned Greek buildings were scattered around the valley - the amphitheater, the combat arena, the dining pavilion overlooking Long Island Sound. And nestled between the woods and the creek were the same cabins - a crazy assortment of twelve buildings, each representing a different Olympian god. 

But there was an air of danger now. You could tell something was wrong. Instead of playing volleyball in the sandpit, counselors and satyrs were stockpiling weapons in the tool shed. Dryads armed with bows and arrows talked nervously at the edge of the woods. The forest looked sickly, the grass in the meadow was pale yellow, and the fire marks on Half-Blood Hill stood out like ugly scars. 

It really bothered him, but mostly it was uncomfortably familiar. Camp Half-Blood had seen war quite a few times in his past life, at least half a dozen at some point  _ after _ he’d stopped attending as a camper. The next generation was as much, if not  _ more  _ trouble than he and his friends had been - and he almost preferred it that way. Still, as he walked through camp with Annabeth and Tyson, as the air of battle and the sense of a calm before the _ real  _ storm settled around his shoulders like a blanket, Percy found himself walking straighter. His instinct was to take up some form of command, to settle the nerves of the troops and assure them they’d see the light of day when this hurricane passed - but that wasn’t his place now. Not anymore. 

He recognized a few of the campers they passed by. No one said hi, or looked particularly happy in general. Some did double takes when they saw Tyson, but most just walked grimly past and carried on with their duties - running messages, toting swords to sharpen on the grinding wheels. 

The camp felt like a military school. He should know - he’d been kicked out of a couple in his day.

None of that mattered to Tyson. He was absolutely fascinated by everything he saw. 

“Whasthat!” he gasped. 

“The stables for pegasi,” Percy said. “The winged horses.” 

“Whasthat!” 

“Uh, those are the toilets.” 

“Whasthat!” 

“The cabins for the campers. If they don’t know who your Olympian parent is, they put you in the Hermes cabin - that brown one over there - until you’re determined. Then, once they know, they put you in your dad or mom’s group.” 

He looked at Percy in awe. 

“You. . . have a cabin?” 

“Number three,” he said, and pointed to a low gray building made of sea stone. 

“You live with friends in the cabin?” 

“No, just me,” he didn’t explain any further. Mostly because he didn’t want to say anything along the lines of ‘I’m the only son of Poesidon’ around the big guy because that was a blatant lie and not one he cared to spread anyway.

When they got to the Big House, they found Chiron in his apartment, listening to his favorite 1960s lounge music while he packed his saddlebags. He’d missed the centaur - he may have pretended to be a Latin teacher for a year to spy on him, but that was just for his safety. 

As soon as they saw him, Tyson froze. “Pony!” he cried in total rapture. 

Chiron turned, looking offended. “I beg your pardon?” 

Annabeth ran up and hugged him. “Chiron, what’s happening? You’re not… leaving?” Her voice was shaky. 

Chiron was like a second father to her. Chiron ruffled her hair and gave her a kindly smile. “Hello, child. And Percy, my goodness. You’ve grown over the year!” 

“I heard that you were, uhm...” 

“Fired.” Chiron’s eyes glinted with dark humor. “Ah, well, someone had to take the blame. Lord Zeus was most upset. The tree he’d created from the spirit of his daughter, poisoned! Mr. D had to punish someone.” 

“Besides himself, you mean,” Percy grumbled. Just the thought of the camp director, Mr. D, made him angry. 

“But this is crazy!” Annabeth cried. “Chiron, you couldn’t have had anything to do with poisoning Thalia’s tree!” 

“Nevertheless,” Chiron sighed, “some in Olympus do not trust me now, under the circumstances.”

“I don’t think any circumstances could put you under reasonable doubt, Chiron,” Percy said, trying to be kind, but also it was the truth. There wasn’t a single bone in his body that distrusted Chiron. 

Tyson was still staring at Chiron in amazement. He whimpered like he wanted to pat Chiron’s flank but was afraid to come closer. “Pony?” 

Chiron sniffed. “My dear young Cyclops! I am a  _ centaur _ .” 

“Chiron,” Percy asked, “What about the tree? Do we have any clue who did it?” The chances were low, but small things can always change-

He shook his head sadly. “The poison used on Thalia’s pine is something from the Underworld, Percy. Some venom even I have never seen. It must have come from a monster quite deep in the pits of Tartarus.” 

“Okay, then we know who did it! Obviously it was Luke. He’s gotta still be working for-” 

“Do not invoke the titan lord’s name, Percy. Especially not now.” 

“There’s still no way you did it, though - even if the gods don’t want to acknowledge who really did, there’s no way you could’ve poisoned the tree with something you’ve never even seen before.” 

“Perhaps,” Chiron said. “But I fear I am being held responsible because I did not prevent it and I cannot cure it. The tree has only a few weeks of life left unless...” 

“Unless what?” Annabeth asked. 

“No,” Chiron said. “A foolish thought. The whole valley is feeling the shock of the poison. The magical borders are deteriorating. The camp itself is dying. Only one source of magic would be strong enough to reverse the poison, and it was lost centuries ago.”

“...It’s the Fleece, isn’t it?” Percy asked lowly. He wasn’t entirely sure how to bring up the rest of his thoughts just yet, so he decided to get Chrion to confirm the most important thing to Annabeth, first. 

Chiron nodded with a grim look in his eyes. “Yes, I’m afraid so. But you must not let yourself be baited into hasty action! This could be a trap of the titan lord. Remember last summer, he almost took your life.”

Percy tugged on his charm necklace, before squeezing one of the charms - a lion that had once been a very inaccurate shade of yellow, but was now mostly white, with it’s paint rubbed away. It felt partially easier to breathe, as he turned the plastic over in his fingers, feeling the irregular shape and letting it dig into his skin hard enough to leave an imprint. 

Annabeth was trying hard not to cry. Chiron brushed a tear from her cheek. “Stay with Percy, child,” he told her. “Keep him safe. The prophecy—remember it!”

“I - I will.” 

Thunder rumbled outside. 

“Very well,” Chiron said. He seemed to relax just a little. “Perhaps my name will be cleared and I shall return. Until then, I go to visit my wild kinsmen in the Everglades. It’s possible they know of some cure for the poisoned tree that I have forgotten. In any event, I will stay in exile until this matter is resolved . . . one way or another.” 

Annabeth stifled a sob. Chiron patted her shoulder awkwardly. “There, now, child. I must entrust your safety to Mr. D and the new activities director. We must hope. . . well, perhaps they won’t destroy the camp quite as quickly as I fear.” 

“Who the hell does Tantalus think he is, anyway, taking your place as director? No one could replace you, Chiron,” Percy remarked bitterly. 

A conch horn blew across the valley. He hadn’t realized how late it was. It was time for the campers to assemble for dinner. 

“Go,” Chiron said. “You will meet him at the pavilion. I will contact your mother, Percy, and let her know you’re safe. No doubt she’ll be worried by now. Just remember my warning! You are in grave danger. Do not think for a moment that the titan lord has forgotten you!” 

With that, he clopped out of the apartment and down the hall, Tyson calling after him, “Pony! Don’t go!” 

Tyson started bawling almost as bad as Annabeth. 

Percy felt the same, but kept his face carefully blank. It was a dangerous game to play, he knew, to bottle things up until they exploded in his and everyone else’s faces, but it was all he could do for now. To stay strong for his friends, and help them through this. 

The sun was setting behind the dining pavilion as the campers came up from their cabins. They stood in the shadow of a marble column and watched them file in. Annabeth was still pretty shaken up, but she promised she’d talk to him and Tyson later. Then she went off to join her siblings from the Athena cabin - a dozen boys and girls with blond hair and gray eyes like hers. 

Annabeth wasn’t the oldest, but she’d been at camp more summers than just about anybody. You could tell that by looking at her camp necklace - one bead for every summer, and Annabeth had six. No one questioned her right to lead the line. 

Next came Clarisse, leading the Ares cabin. She had one arm in a sling and a nasty-looking gash on her cheek, but otherwise her encounter with the bronze bulls didn’t seem to have fazed her. Someone had taped a piece of paper to her back that said, YOU MOO, GIRL! But nobody in her cabin was bothering to tell her about it. He was tempted to say something, just to see her get angry about it, but he didn’t have a death-wish just yet. 

After the Ares kids came the Hephaestus cabin - six guys led by Charles Beckendorf, a big fifteen year-old African American kid. He had hands the size of catchers’ mitts and a face that was hard and squinty from looking into a blacksmith’s forge all day. He was nice enough once you got to know him, but no one ever called him Charlie or Chuck or Charles. Most just called him Beckendorf. As far as Percy was concerned, the guy could make anything. Give him a chunk of metal and he could create a razor-sharp sword or a robotic warrior or a singing bird bath for your grandmother’s garden. Whatever you wanted. He’d been extremely important during the hardest times at camp. 

The other cabins filed in: Demeter, Apollo, Aphrodite, Dionysus. Naiads came up from the canoe lake. Dryads melted out of the trees. From the meadow came a dozen satyrs, who reminded him painfully of Grover. He knew his friend was fine for the moment, but Percy kept wondering if he’d done something to mess up the timeline somehow. If Grover would die early, and never get to finish his quest, all because Percy had said the wrong thing or killed the wrong monster. 

After the satyrs filed in to dinner, the Hermes cabin brought up the rear. They were always the biggest cabin. Last summer, it had been led by Luke. For a while, before Poseidon had claimed him, he’d resided in the cabin. (Twice, now. It was always the same, however.) Luke had been a friend, once, and even though their interactions this time around were soured by Percy’s awareness of his betrayal, he still valued the time they’d spent together, in a way. Luke had taught him so much about sword-fighting… and real life, like how it punches you in the gut sometimes.

Now the Hermes cabin was led by Travis and Connor Stoll. They weren’t twins, but they looked so much alike it didn’t matter. He never knew which one was older, but he’d developed the ability to tell them apart, about ninety-eight percent of the time. They were both tall and skinny, with mops of brown hair that hung in their eyes. They wore orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirts untucked over baggy shorts, and they had those elfish features all Hermes’s kids had: upturned eyebrows, sarcastic smiles, a gleam in their eyes whenever they looked at you - like they were about to drop a firecracker down your shirt. 

As soon as the last campers had filed in, he led Tyson into the middle of the pavilion. Conversations faltered. Heads turned. 

“Who invited that?” somebody at the Apollo table murmured. He glared in their direction, but couldn’t figure out who’d spoken.

From the head table a familiar voice drawled, “Well, well, if it isn’t Peter Johnson. My millennium is complete.”

“Great to see you too, Mr. D.”

Mr. D just sipped his Diet Coke. 

He was wearing his usual leopard-pattern Hawaiian shirt, walking shorts, and tennis shoes with black socks. With his pudgy belly and his blotchy red face, he looked like a Las Vegas tourist who’d stayed up too late in the casinos. Behind him, a nervous-looking satyr was peeling the skins off grapes and handing them to Mr. D one at a time. Dionysus was a jerk, and a big one at that, but arguing with him wasn’t worth getting turned into a porpoise for. 

Next to him, where Chiron usually sat (or stood, in centaur form), was someone he, regrettably, recognized - a pale, horribly thin man in a threadbare orange prisoner’s jumpsuit. The number over his pocket read 0001. He had blue shadows under his eyes, dirty fingernails, and badly cut gray hair, like his last haircut had been done with a weed whacker. 

Tantalus stared at him; his eyes were less than reassuring of his character. He looked about as broken as Percy felt inside. Angry and frustrated and hungry all at the same time. 

“This boy,” Dionysus told him, “you need to watch. Poseidon’s child, you know.” 

“Ah!” the prisoner said. “That one.” His tone made it obvious that he and Dionysus had already discussed Percy at length. 

“I am Tantalus,” the prisoner said, smiling coldly. “On special assignment here until, well, until my Lord Dionysus decides otherwise. And you, Perseus Jackson, I do expect you to refrain from causing any more trouble.”

“Then you expect to be disappointed, sir,” was all Percy said. 

Tantalus frowned, but then continued as if he hadn’t heard him. “You caused plenty of it last summer, I understand.” 

“Yup. Big fan of the toilet thing, but you know - fighting the God of War was pretty fun too.”

He had long since learned to stop denying things he hadn’t actually done, or wasn’t at fault for. No one listened, and it was a thousand times funnier to just piss them off by being sarcastic. 

Tantalus and Mr. D both looked less than pleased, but chose to ignore him again. 

A satyr inched forward nervously and set a plate of barbecue in front of Tantalus. The new activities director licked his lips. He looked at his empty goblet and said, “Root beer. Barq’s special stock. 1967.” 

The glass filled itself with foamy soda. Tantalus stretched out his hand hesitantly, as if he were afraid the goblet was hot. 

“Go on, then, old fellow,” Dionysus said, a strange sparkle in his eyes. “Perhaps now it will work.” 

Tantalus grabbed for the glass, but it scooted away before he could touch it. A few drops of root beer spilled, and Tantalus tried to dab them up with his fingers, but the drops rolled away like quicksilver before he could touch them. He growled and turned toward the plate of barbecue. He picked up a fork and tried to stab a piece of brisket, but the plate skittered down the table and flew off the end, straight into the coals of the brazier. 

“Blast!” Tantalus muttered. 

“Ah, well,” Dionysus said, his voice dripping with false sympathy. “Perhaps a few more days. Believe me, old chap, working at this camp will be torture enough. I’m sure your old curse will fade eventually.” 

“Eventually,” muttered Tantalus, staring at Dionysus’s Diet Coke. “Do you have any idea how dry one’s throat gets after three thousand years?” 

Honestly, Percy didn’t remember much about what the guy had done to deserve his punishment - just that he’d killed his son, and stolen something from the gods. Then again, stealing anything from the gods, even an abandoned sock, was enough to justify the most horrible punishments in the eyes of most of the immortal jerks. 

Sighing, Percy turned away to go to his own table. “Come on, Tyson.” 

“Oh, no,” Tantalus said. “The monster stays here. We must decide what to do with it.” 

“Him,” he snapped. “His name is Tyson.” 

The new activities director raised an eyebrow. 

“He saved the camp? Like, an hour ago, he killed one of those bulls. You know, the things that could’ve destroyed camp and killed everyone?” 

“Yes,” Tantalus sighed, “and what a pity that would’ve been.” 

Dionysus snickered. 

“Leave us,” Tantalus ordered, “while we decide this creature’s fate.”

Oh, he wanted so badly to punch the  _ bdelyròs,  _ but he couldn’t. One couldn’t just openly defy the camp director’s orders. At least, not until after saving the world a few dozen times and becoming a semi-permanent counselor. 

“I’ll be right over here, big guy,” he promised. “Don’t worry. We’ll find you a good place to sleep tonight.” 

Tyson nodded. “I believe you. You are my friend.” 

Well if that wasn’t heart-breaking, he didn’t know what was. 

Dejectedly, Percy went back to sit at his own table and grab some food. The blue cherry coke didn’t make him feel any better, as he took a sip to gather the mental strength to go make an offering to his father. 

Walking up to the burning brazier on it’s pyre, Percy scraped the juiciest steak that had been available, as well as some extra-salty fries, and murmured: 

“Poesidon, please accept my offering. And claim your other kid, for the love of Zeus.” 

He could swear he saw a brief flash of blue in the flames, as well as taste the sea breeze on his tongue. Percy smiled. 

Eventually dinner was wrapping up, and a satyr blew a conch to get everyone’s attention for Tantalus before they could leave. 

“Yes, well,” Tantalus said, once the talking had died down. “Another fine meal! Or so I am told.” As he spoke, he inched his hand toward his refilled dinner plate, as if maybe the food wouldn’t notice what he was doing, but it did. It shot away down the table as soon as he got within six inches. 

“And here on my first day of authority,” he continued, “I’d like to say what a pleasant form of punishment it is to be here. Over the course of the summer, I hope to torture, er, interact with each and every one of you children. You all look good enough to eat.” 

Dionysus clapped politely, leading to some halfhearted applause from the satyrs. Tyson was still standing at the head table, looking uncomfortable, but every time he tried to scoot out of the limelight, Tantalus pulled him back. “And now some changes!” 

Tantalus gave the campers a crooked smile. “We are reinstituting the chariot races!” Murmuring broke out at all the tables - excitement, fear, disbelief. 

“Now I know,” Tantalus continued, raising his voice, “that these races were discontinued some years ago due to, ah, technical problems.” 

“Three deaths and twenty-six mutilations,” someone at the Apollo table called.

“Yes, yes!” Tantalus said. “But I know that you will all join me in welcoming the return of this camp tradition. Golden laurels will go to the winning charioteers each month. Teams may register in the morning! The first race will be held in three days time. We will release you from most of your regular activities to prepare your chariots and choose your horses. Oh, and did I mention, the victorious team’s cabin will have no chores for the month in which they win?”

An explosion of excited conversation—no KP for a whole month? No stable cleaning? Was he serious? 

Then Clarisse stood up. 

“But, sir!” Clarisse said. She looked nervous, but she stood up to speak from the Ares table. Some of the campers snickered when they saw the YOU MOO, GIRL! sign on her back. “What about patrol duty? I mean, if we drop everything to ready our chariots -” 

“Ah, the hero of the day,” Tantalus exclaimed. “Brave Clarisse, who single-handedly bested the bronze bulls!” 

Clarisse blinked, then blushed. “Um, I didn’t - ”

“And modest, too.” Tantalus grinned. “Not to worry, my dear! This is a summer camp. We are here to enjoy ourselves, yes?” 

“But the tree - ” 

“And now,” Tantalus said, as several of Clarisse’s cabin mates pulled her back into her seat, “before we proceed to the campfire and sing-along, one slight housekeeping issue. Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase have seen fit, for some reason, to bring this here.” Tantalus waved a hand toward Tyson. 

Uneasy murmuring spread among the campers. A lot of sideways looks at Percy. 

“Now, of course,” he said, “Cyclopes have a reputation for being bloodthirsty monsters with a very small brain capacity. Under normal circumstances, I would release this beast into the woods and have you hunt it down with torches and pointed sticks. But who knows? Perhaps this Cyclops is not as horrible as most of its brethren. Until it proves worthy of destruction, we need a place to keep it! I’ve thought about the stables, but that will make the horses nervous. Hermes’s cabin, possibly?”

Percy practically launched out of his seat. 

“Cabin Three will take him!” 

Suddenly everybody gasped; but not because of Percy’s statement. Because of what appeared over Tyson’s head as soon as he’d said it: a glowing blue-green trident, radiant and bright. Percy grinned like a fool. 

There was a moment of awed silence. 

Being claimed was a rare event. Some campers waited in vain for it their whole lives. When he’d been claimed by Poseidon last summer, everyone had reverently knelt. But now, they followed Tantalus’s lead, and Tantalus roared with laughter. 

“Well! I think we know where to put the beast now. By the gods, I can see the family resemblance!” 

Everybody laughed except Annabeth and a few of Percy’s other friends. Tyson didn’t seem to notice. He was too mystified, trying to swat the glowing trident that was now fading over his head. He was too innocent to understand how much they were making fun of him, how cruel people were.

But Percy couldn’t help but to wave excitedly to his brother, calling him over. To hell with what anyone else thought - he loved his brother, and anyone who didn’t or couldn’t learn to wasn’t worth his time. 


	4. The Great Pigeon Race

The next few days were a little awkward, with everyone still avoiding him like the plague or laughing at him, but having Annabeth and Tyson made things easier. Clarisse even seemed to be in some sort of tentative alliance with him, after he’d caught her outside her cabin and offered to help patrol the night shifts - the one most weren’t keen on, and was now even thinner with preparations for the chariot races underway. 

First there was Tyson moving into the Poseidon cabin, giggling to himself every fifteen seconds and saying, “Percy is my brother?” like he’d just won the lottery.

Percy wasn’t  _ as _ childish about it, but he was still really glad to have someone else in Cabin Three with him again. Even though he knew it wouldn’t last forever, and eventually the big guy would move on to working in Poseidon's forges, he’d enjoy this while he could. They set him up on one of the lower bunk beds - right across from Percy. It creaked a little under his weight, but it would work. 

Annabeth was a steady comfort in the face of the not-so-subtle bullying. She suggested they team up for the chariot race to take their minds off their problems. 

Really, a part of Percy just wanted to find Tantalus in the middle of the night with Anaklusmos drawn, but that wasn’t allowed - not to mention he’d probably be the number one suspect, even if he wasn’t caught right away. 

Until he could think of a good way to propose the idea of retrieving the fleece to Annabeth, the might as well go along with the races. All he needed was a solid plan, and a logical way to connect the coordinates from the Gray Sisters to the fleece being hidden and Grover. 

For now, well - Athena and Poesidon did kinda  _ invent  _ the chariot. Well, Athena made the Chariot, Poseidon made the horses to pull it. They would totally own the track. They already had once, right? ...He genuinely didn’t know. Something told him they’d at least gotten close, but Tantalus had pulled some cheap trick like giving Clarisse all the credit for defeating the bulls earlier. 

One morning he and Annabeth were sitting by the canoe lake sketching chariot designs when some jokers from Aphrodite’s cabin walked by and asked him if he needed to borrow some eyeliner for his eye. . . “Oh sorry,  _ eyes _ .” 

As they walked away laughing, Annabeth grumbled, “Just ignore them, Percy. It isn’t your fault you have a monster for a brother.”

“He is  _ not-  _ okay, well, he is technically, but  _ still.  _ Don’t call him that, please. He’s more human than a lot of people, he’s just young and doesn’t know a lot about the world yet.” 

“I - yeah. I mean, I’m sorry, Percy. I know he’s your brother and you love him, but it’s never going to be easy, you realize that, right?” 

“They’ll get used to him eventually. He probably won’t even stay at camp for very long, something tells me once he finds the right thing for him he’ll make his own way.” 

“I’m sure he will, seaweed brain.” 

“...thanks, wise girl.” 

The next few days, he just tried to stay under the radar. 

Silena Beauregard, one of the nicer girls from Aphrodite’s cabin, gave him his ‘first’ riding lesson on a pegasus. She explained that there was only one immortal winged horse named Pegasus, who still wandered free somewhere in the skies, but over the eons he’d sired a lot of children, none quite so fast or heroic, but all named after the first and greatest. Percy thought of BlackJack, and twisted one of his rings as he felt nostalgic again. 

Being the son of the sea god, he generally didn’t like being in the air just on principle, but riding a pegasus was different. It didn’t make him feel as nervous, because while the sky was Zeus’s domain, horses were Poseidon’s. It’s why he wasn’t surprised when his pegasus went galloping over the treetops or chased a flock of seagulls into a cloud; he could understand their thoughts, as one of their uh… Lords. He’d never been a big fan of the title, but it’s what they called him. And fish, but they were generally a little less cognizant. 

The problem was that Tyson wanted to ride the “chicken ponies,” too, but the pegasi got skittish whenever he approached. He tried to tell the horses that Tyson was a son of the Sea God as well, that he was deserving of just as much respect from them as Percy, but that didn’t seem to help as much as he’d expected it to. That made Tyson cry. 

The only person at camp who had no problem with Tyson was Beckendorf from the Hephaestus cabin. The blacksmith god had always worked with Cyclopes in his forges, so Beckendorf took Tyson down to the armory to teach him metalworking. He said he’d have Tyson crafting magic items like a master in no time. Percy thanked him sincerely, but Beckendorf said that wasn’t necessary. 

After lunch, he worked out in the arena with Apollo’s cabin. Swordplay had always been his strength, in terms of combat. People said he was better at it than any camper in the last hundred years, except maybe Luke. People always compared him to Luke. It pissed him off enough to fuel his fights, as he crushed half a dozen Apollo kids before braking for water. 

It was less that he needed a drink, though, and more that he just needed a break from  _ people.  _ His therapist had called it social exhaustion, something a lot of people experiences, especially introverts. The feeling of just being around people and having to interact with them being draining, and needing breaks. For some it was bad enough that they could only stand being around others for a few hours a day, or even a week. 

Thankfully, Percy only had to seclude himself for two or three hours a day, usually towards the afternoon of before bedtime. He’d go down to the docks, jump into the water, and walk down to the shoals and all the way up to the drop-off before letting himself sink down to the ocean floor. Then he’d lay there for a while before coming up for bed, just in time for curfew. Technically he could call his own lights-out, but everyone had to be at least  _ inside _ their cabins by ten, or report to Clarisse if they were patrolling. 

The other activities were all business as usual. Percy still sucked at archery, but enjoyed canoeing even though he mostly did that by himself. For arts and crafts he focused mainly on learning how to braid leather and make small marble charms; none of them turned out great, but he was getting a little bit of the dexterity to do it on his own. Every other night he’d take a night patrol, using the opportunity to catch up on sleep on the alternative nights. 

One afternoon, he sat up on Half-Blood Hill, near Thalia’s tree. He wasn’t technically patrolling or anything, probably wouldn’t have even brought a sword if Riptide wasn’t connected to him magically. It’d just been a long day and Percy wanted a break - and to apologize to Thalia with a few well-meaning prayers - before dinner. Absentmindedly, he felt at his chest underneath his shirt. The scar Luke had given him last year was still there; a two-and-a-half inch long scar, from Backbiter going right through his ribs. 

It didn’t hurt as much as he’d expected - after healing, that is. He still got phantom pains all over from where past scars had been, but for some reason his actual scars (one gained in  _ this  _ timeline or whatever you call it) just didn’t bring the same painful reminders. They didn’t give him nightmares, or if they had he never remembered them after waking up. Maybe the trauma he  _ can’t  _ tell anyone about or ever really hope to come to terms with is just choosing to take precedence. 

Percy had more dreams about Grover. They were all a lot more vague and less meaningful than the first, though. Sometimes he just hears things, like  _ It’s here.  _ Another time: _ He likes sheep. _ He knew they all had to do with  Polyphemus and Grover, though, so he just carefully noted down what he remembered in a notebook for later. It always helped to write prophetic dreams down, if only to keep a log of evidence that made it easier for others to believe you later. 

The night before the race, he and Tyson finished the chariot. Annabeth had designed most of it, and insisted she oversee the construction for the most part, but Percy and Tyson were the ones making it. He knew wise girl didn’t exactly love the idea, but seemed pleased with the metal parts his brother had made in the armory’s forges. It was blue and grey, the grey paint a little glittery to look more like steel. On the sides, an owl was painted holding a trident with its feet as it flew- he was very proud of it. Although Tyson had been there to help build it, Annabeth and Percy would be the riders, since they were lighter and only two riders were allowed. He told his brother it was because he didn’t want the cyclops to get hurt, but really it was more about weight distribution, and avoiding any breakdowns from other campers saying mean things during the race. 

Tyson didn’t actually seem upset about it, still wary about the horses not liking him, and said he would be cheering very loudly for ‘brother Percy and pretty girl’ from the stands. Annabeth told him to stop calling her that, her name was Annabeth, but it all seemed to go in one ear and out the other. 

As the brothers were turning in for bed, Tyson said, “You are mad?” 

Percy realized he’d been scowling, caught up in some thoughts about Tantalus and how the guy could possibly think the chariot races were a good idea.

“Nah. I’m not mad. Well, not at you.” 

Tysn laid across his bed, feet handing well over the edge. “I am a monster.” 

“Don’t say that.” 

“It is okay. I will be a  _ good _ monster. Then you will not have to be mad.”

“I already said I’m not mad at  _ you,  _ it’s just all the dumb people who think-” 

A deep rumbling sounded throughout the cabin. Tyson was snoring. 

“Goodnight, big guy,” he sighed. 

Grover was wearing a wedding dress in his dream. It didn’t fit him very well. The gown was too long and the hem was caked with dried mud, and the neckline kept falling off his shoulders. A tattered veil covered his face. It was funny as hell, but Percy didn’t laugh for the sake of his friend’s dignity. 

He was standing in a dank cave, lit only by torches. There was a cot in one corner and an old fashioned loom in the other, a length of white cloth half woven on the frame. “Thank the gods!” the satyr yelped. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, man, I can hear you. What’s going on?” Percy asked, taking in the stalactites above, the stench of sheep and goats, the growling and grumbling and bleating sounds that seemed to echo from behind a refrigerator-sized boulder, which was blocking the room’s only exit, as if there were a much larger cavern beyond it.

From behind the boulder, a monstrous voice yelled, “Honeypie! Are you done yet?” 

Grover flinched. He called out in falsetto, “Not quite, dearest! A few more days!” 

“Bah! Hasn’t it been two weeks yet?” 

“N-no, dearest. Just five days. That leaves twelve more to go.” 

The monster was silent, maybe trying to do the math. He must’ve been pretty bad at math, because he just said “All right, but hurry! I want to SEEEEE under that veil, heh-heh-heh.” 

Grover turned back to him “You have to help me! No time! I’m stuck in this cave. On an island in the sea.” 

Percy nodded. “I think I already know where you are, but I can’t get to you just yet. Things are really bad at camp, g-man. Chiron’s been fired.” 

“Tha- That’s awful, but in case you haven’t noticed, I’m only a few days away from being cyclops food! I got caught in a trap, It’s the reason no satyr has ever returned from this quest. He’s a shepherd, Percy! And he has it. Its nature magic is so powerful it smells just like the great god Pan! The satyrs come here thinking they’ve found Pan, and they get trapped and eaten by Polyphemus!”

“By ‘it’, you mean-” 

“The Golden Fleece!” 

“Right, listen- I’m going to do my best, alright Grover? I’ll try to get a quest approved, but if that doesn’t work out me and Annabeth will come anyways. You know that, right? We’ll come for you no matter what, just hang in there.” 

“Yeah, yeah… of course. And look, Percy… um, I’m really sorry about this, but this empathy link... well, I had no choice. Our emotions are connected now. If I die...”

“I’ll die too. Or close enough.” 

“Honeypie!” the monster bellowed. “Dinnertime! Yummy yummy sheep meat!” 

Grover whimpered. “I have to go. Hurry! Sweet dreams, don’t let me die!” 

The dream faded and he woke with a start. It was early morning. Tyson was staring down at him, his one big brown eye full of concern. 

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Something tells me today’s going to be really exciting.” 

The morning of the race was hot and humid. Fog lay low on the ground like sauna steam. Millions of birds were roosting in the trees - fat gray-and-white pigeons, except they didn’t coo like regular pigeons; they made this annoying metallic screeching sound that itched at the back of his mind. Percy remembered something about mechanical pigeons during the chariot race, something annoying. The noise was annoying enough, but he didn’t think that was it, exactly… 

The racetrack had been built in a grassy field between the archery range and the woods. Hephaestus’s cabin had used the bronze bulls, which were completely tame since they’d had their heads smashed in, to plow an oval track in a matter of minutes. There were rows of stone steps for the spectators - Tantalus, the satyrs, a few dryads, and all of the campers who weren’t participating, including Tyson near the front with a few feet of empty seats on either side of him. Mr. D didn’t show. He never got up before ten o’clock. 

“Right!” Tantalus announced as the teams began to assemble. A naiad had brought him a big platter of pastries, and as Tantalus spoke, his right hand chased a chocolate éclair across the judge’s table. “You all know the rules. A quarter-mile track. Twice around to win. Two horses per chariot. Each team will consist of a driver and a fighter. Weapons are allowed. Dirty tricks are expected. But try not to kill anybody!” 

Tantalus smiled at them like they were all naughty children. “Any killing will result in harsh punishment. No s’mores at the campfire for a week! Now ready your chariots!” 

Beckendorf led the Hephaestus team onto the track. They had a sweet ride made of bronze and iron - even the horses, which were magical automatons like the Colchis bulls. He felt a little nostalgic, watching the son of Hephaestus so clearly in his element. 

The Ares chariot was blood red, and pulled by two grisly horse skeletons. Clarisse climbed aboard with a batch of javelins, spiked balls, caltrops, and a bunch of other nasty toys. Against what was probably his better judgment, Percy waved to her and wished her good luck; she just scowled and pretended not to hear him. 

Apollo’s chariot was trim and graceful and completely gold, pulled by two beautiful palominos. Their fighter was armed with a bow, though he had promised not to shoot regular pointed arrows at the opposing drivers. 

Hermes’s chariot was green and kind of old-looking, as if it hadn’t been out of the garage in years. It didn’t look like anything special, but it was manned by the Stoll brothers, and he knew they’d have some nasty tricks. 

That left two chariots: one driven by two of Annabeth’s siblings, in a sterling grey chariot with a sleek, modern look to it representing Athena, and his own chariot. The homage to the one time Poesidon and Athena had ever really worked together on something. It wasn’t like there were any steadfast rules about who got to drive the chariots together, campers just naturally drifted towards collaborating with their siblings.

As he and Annabeth were setting up their ride, (she would be the driver, and he the fighter) Percy told her about his dream. 

“Wait, so you’re saying Grover came across the one thing that could save the camp? And that both are in the same place, right now?” 

“Pretty much. But we need to consult the Oracle if we’re ever going to get Mr. D and Tantalus to let us go on a quest. They both hate my guts.” 

“Actually, that could work in our favor.” She said. “They might be more willing to send you on a suicide mission like marching right into Polyphemus’s den.”

“Maybe. But would they ever risk us actually coming back with the Fleece and saving the camp? They want this camp to run into the ground.” 

Before she could answer, the conch horn sounded. 

“Charioteers!” Tantalus called. “To your mark!” 

“We’ll talk later,” Annabeth told him, “ _ after  _ we win.”

He nodded at her with a grin. “You got it, wise girl.” 

Even more pigeons had gathered in the trees. The sounds they were making really grated on his ears, Percy could feel it in his teeth. Combined with the really less-than-ergonomic design of Greek chariots, he was already feeling a bit on edge. 

Practicing with the ten-foot pole he had to knock others away with, (and Riptide, if things got too close,) he tried to settle his nerves. Annabeth had added plenty of cool little tricks to their ride - there was a hatch at the back to release what looked like five-pound jumping jacks to trip up other riders. There was even a lever to release three-foot steel pipes on either side, to push others back if they tried to ram or board them. 

Earlier, he had also incentivised their horses to behave well with promises of apples and many sugar cubes after the race, just as a precaution. A lot could go wrong if/when the ones pulling your ride decide to rebel. 

As the chariots lined up, more shiny-eyed pigeons gathered in the woods. They were screeching so loudly the campers in the stands were starting to take notice, glancing nervously at the trees, which shivered under the weight of the birds. 

Tantalus didn’t look concerned, but he did have to speak up to be heard over the noise. “Charioteers!” he shouted. “Attend your mark!” He waved his hand and the starting signal dropped. 

The chariots roared to life. Hooves thundered against the dirt. The crowd cheered. 

Almost immediately there was a loud nasty _ crack! _ Percy looked back in time to see the Apollo chariot flip over. The Hermes chariot had rammed into it - maybe by mistake, maybe not. The riders were thrown free, but their panicked horses dragged the golden chariot diagonally across the track. The Hermes team, Travis and Connor Stoll, were laughing at their good luck, but not for long. The Apollo horses crashed into theirs, and the Hermes chariot flipped too, leaving a pile of broken wood and four rearing horses in the dust. 

Two chariots down in the first twenty yards.  _ Man, I love this sport.  _

He and Annabeth were already pulling ahead, but the Hephestus chariot wasn’t far behind. 

Beckendorf pressed a button, and a panel slid open on the side of his chariot. 

“Sorry, Percy!” he yelled. Three sets of balls and chains shot straight toward thekr wheels. Without really thinking about it and letting the movements flow instinctively, Percy knocked the chains away with a quick sweep of the pole. There was a good chunk of his brain that demanded he send a counter attack, but he didn’t have the strength to do much with what was basically a big metal stick. 

But there  _ was  _ something he could do, with Beckendorf’s chariot almost directly behind them - Percy reached for the lever, pushing it forward quickly. Almost as soon as he did, eight large, five-point metal spikes fell out from underneath theri chariot, landing in the dirt below. Beckendorf’s driver didn’t have enough time to swerve out of the way, and their metal horses scrambled and tripped over them. The chariot was forced to halt by the now-dispatched machines pulling it, and the two members of the Hephaestus cabin were thrown from their ride. 

“Seaweed brain! What’s happening back there?”

“Hephaestus kids down, that’s three chariots out!” 

They were already down to half the original competitors, which was pretty good in his opinion. The other Athena kids were just a little ways ahead of them, Ares a bit further than that. The fighter for Athena’s chariot was getting ready to throw a javelin from their collection when they all heard screaming. 

The pigeons were swarming - thousands of them dive-bombing the spectators in the stands, attacking the other chariots. Tyson was trying to catch them in his hands like a kid chasing a butterfly. The Athena kids were mobbed, the fighter unable to get them out of the way in time for the driver to correct their course, and they went crashing into the strawberry fields. 

In the Ares chariot, Clarisse barked an order to her fighter, who quickly threw a screen of camouflage netting over their basket. The birds swarmed around it, pecking and clawing at the fighter’s hands as he tried to hold up the net, but Clarisse just gritted her teeth and kept driving. Her skeletal horses seemed immune to the distraction. The pigeons pecked uselessly at their empty eye sockets and flew through their rib cages, but the stallions kept right on running. 

The spectators weren’t so lucky. The birds were slashing at any bit of exposed flesh, driving everyone into a panic. Now that the birds were closer, it was clear they weren’t normal pigeons. Their eyes were beady and evil-looking. Their beaks were made of bronze, and judging from the yelps of the campers, they must’ve been razor sharp. 

“Stymphalian birds!” Annabeth yelled. She slowed down the chariot and began to turn around. “They’ll strip everyone to bones if we don’t drive them away!”

Ah, well. Not like he had ever really been in the habit of winning anything in life, why start now? 

Annabeth shouted “Heroes! To arms!” But the pigeons were still so loud that no one heard her.

He stood a little more firmly in place and ditched the metal rod, managing to draw Riptide as a wave of birds dived at his face. Their metal beaks snapped, and even as he slashed through them, turning them into little explosions of dust and feathers, there were still millions of them left. One nailed him in the back of the head, and Percy could feel blood trailing down his neck and catching on the collar of his shirt. 

Annabeth wasn’t having much better luck. The closer they got to the stands, the thicker the cloud of birds became. Some of the spectators were trying to fight back. The Athena campers were calling for shields. The archers from Apollo’s cabin brought out their bows and arrows, ready to slay the menace, but with so many campers mixed in with the birds, it wasn’t safe to shoot. 

“There’s too many!” he yelled to Annabeth. “How do you get rid of these things?” 

She stabbed a pigeon with her knife. “Hercules used noise! Brass bells! He scared them away with the most horrible sound he could-” Her eyes got wide. “Percy . . . Chiron’s collection!”

He knew what she meant, but that didn’t make him any more psyched about the idea. If they were a little closer to the beach, he could’ve drowned the little  _ aphòdeuma’s. _

“Think it’ll work, wise girl?” he shouted over the noise. 

“Only one way to find out, to The Big House!” she replied. 

Clarisse has just pulled across the finish line, completely unopposed, and seemed to notice for the first time how serious the bird problem was. When she saw them driving away, she yelled, “You’re running? The fight is here, cowards!” 

She drew her sword and charged for the stands. He urged their horses into a gallop. The chariot rumbled through the strawberry fields, across the volleyball pit, and lurched to a halt in front of the Big House. He and Annabeth ran inside, tearing down the hallway to Chiron’s apartment. His boombox was still on his nightstand. So were his favorite CDs. He grabbed the most repulsive one he could find, Annabeth snatched the boom box, and together the two of them ran back outside. 

Down at the track, the chariots were in flames. Wounded campers ran in every direction, with birds shredding their clothes and pulling out their hair, while Tantalus chased breakfast pastries around the stands, every once in a while yelling, “Everything’s under control! Not to worry!” 

They pulled up to the finish line. Annabeth got the boom box ready. Percy covered his ears and prayed for mercy. She pressed PLAY and started up Chiron’s favorite - the All-Time Greatest Hits of Dean Martin. Suddenly the air was filled with violins and a bunch of guys moaning in Italian.

The demon pigeons went nuts. They started flying in circles, running into each other like they wanted to bash their own brains out. Then they abandoned the track altogether and flew skyward in a huge dark wave. 

“Now!” shouted Annabeth. “Archers!” 

With clear targets, Apollo’s archers had flawless aim. Most of them could nock five or six arrows at once. Within minutes, the ground was littered with dead bronze-beaked pigeons, and the survivors were a distant trail of smoke on the horizon. 

The camp was saved, but the wreckage wasn’t pretty. Most of the chariots had been completely destroyed. Almost everyone was wounded, bleeding from multiple bird pecks. The kids from Aphrodite’s cabin were screaming because their hairdos had been ruined and their clothes pooped on. 

“Bravo!” Tantalus said, but he wasn’t looking at him or Annabeth. “We have our first winner!” He walked to the finish line and awarded the golden laurels for the race to a stunned-looking Clarisse. 

Then he turned and smiled at Percy. “And now to punish the troublemakers who disrupted this race.”

Just how illegal is it to kill a camp director? 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	5. Hermes's bid farewell

The way Tantalus saw it, the Stymphalian birds had simply been minding their own business in the woods and would not have attacked if Annabeth and Percy hadn’t distracted them with their bad chariot driving, and Tyson with… being a cyclops. 

He sentenced them to kitchen patrol - scrubbing pots and platters all afternoon in the underground kitchen with the cleaning harpies. The harpies washed with lava instead of water, to get that extra-clean sparkle and kill ninety-nine point nine percent of all germs, so he and Annabeth had to wear asbestos gloves and aprons. 

Tyson didn’t mind. He plunged his bare hands right in and started scrubbing, but he and wise girl had to suffer through hours of hot, dangerous work, especially since there were tons of extra plates. Tantalus had ordered a special luncheon banquet to celebrate Clarisse’s chariot victory - a full-course meal featuring country-fried Stymphalian death-bird.

The only upside was that it gave him more time to tell Annabeth about his dreams, and how he was pretty sure the coordinates he’d gotten from the Gray Sisters was where they needed to go. If Grover was about to die they really needed to save him, (especially with his empathy link to the satyr, now,) but if the Golden Fleece was also there they’d save the camp and maybe Chiron’s job too, all in one quest. 

“I mean, it does make sense. Three-thousand years ago, it was the Gray Sisters who sent Jason after the Golden Fleece. If anyone was going to point you in it’s direction, it’d be them.” 

“Exactly. Now all we need to do is meet with the Oracle, and get ourselves a boat. I can take care of the navigation, obviously - you focus on coming up with a clever rescue plan to get in and out of Polyphemus’s lair as quickly as possible.” 

“This all sounds a little  _ too  _ perfect, seaweed brain, you don’t need to oversimplify it any more. Are you sure this isn’t a trap?” 

“Even if it is, do we really have a choice? This is Grover we’re talking about.” 

She sighed. “Tantalus will still never approve us for a quest.”

“Then let’s announce it in front of everyone at dinner, the campers will pressure him into it.” 

“Maybe.” A little bit of hope crept into Annabeth’s voice. “We’d better get these dishes done. Hand me the lava spray gun, will you?” 

That night at the campfire, Apollo’s cabin led the sing-along. They tried to get everybody’s spirits up, but it wasn’t easy after that afternoon’s bird attack. Everyone all sat around a semicircle of stone steps, singing halfheartedly and watching the bonfire blaze while the Apollo guys strummed their guitars and picked their lyres. 

They did all the standard camp numbers: “Down by the Aegean,” “I Am My Own Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandpa,” “This Land is Minos’s Land.” 

The bonfire was enchanted, so the louder you sang, the higher it rose, changing color and heat with the mood of the crowd. On a good night, he’d seen it twenty feet high, bright purple, and so hot the whole front row’s marshmallows burst into the flames. Tonight, the fire was only five feet high, barely warm, and the flames were the color of lint. 

Dionysus left early. After suffering through a few songs, he muttered something about how even pinochle with Chiron had been more exciting than this. Then he gave Tantalus a distasteful look and headed back toward the Big House. 

When the last song was over, Tantalus said, “Well, that was lovely!”

He came forward with a toasted marshmallow on a stick and tried to pluck it off, real casual-like. But before he could touch it, the marshmallow flew off the stick. Tantalus made a wild grab, but the marshmallow committed suicide, diving into the flames. 

Tantalus turned back toward us, smiling coldly. “Now then! Some announcements about tomorrow’s schedule.” 

“Sir,” Percy interjected. 

Tantalus’s eye twitched. “Our kitchen boy has something to say?” 

Some of the Ares campers snickered, but not much embarrassed Percy Jackson more than himself, these days. Even then, most of that was just an all-encompassing guilt for being alive. He stood and looked at Annabeth, and she stood with him. 

“We have an idea to save the camp,” he said simply. Start slow. Get everyone’s attention first. 

The campers stopped laughing. 

“Indeed,” Tantalus said blandly. “Well, if it has anything to do with chariots-” 

“We know where the Golden Fleece is.” 

The flames burned orange. Before Tantalus could stop him, Percy described his dream about Grover and Polyphemus’s island. Annabeth stepped in and reminded everybody what the Fleece could do. It sounded more convincing coming from her. 

“The Fleece can save the camp,” she concluded. “I’m certain of it.” 

“Nonsense,” said Tantalus. “We don’t need saving.” 

Everybody stared at him until Tantalus started looking uncomfortable. 

“Besides,” he added quickly, “the Sea of Monsters? That’s hardly an exact location. You wouldn’t even know where to look.” 

“Yes, I would,” the son of Poesidon said. “I have coordinates from the Gray Sisters, the very same who told Jason where to find it three-thousand years ago. Even if I didn’t, I can find anywhere I want to go on the sea - I thought that’d be kinda obvious.” 

Okay, that last bit was mostly an intimidation thing, but not entirely untrue. Generally, he could find his way  _ back  _ to anywhere he’s been on the sea, and he  _ had  _ been to the Sea of Monsters before. It wasn’t like he could just hop in a dingy and tell the waves to take him somewhere he’d never gone, because the ocean doesn’t generally recognize the mortal names for places, just coordinates or direction and distance. 

“We need a quest, sir,” Annabeth finished, stepping forward with a determined look in her steely grey eyes. 

“Wait just a minute,” Tantalus said. 

But the campers took up the chant. “We need a quest! We need a quest!” The flames rose higher. 

“It isn’t necessary!” Tantalus insisted. 

“WE NEED A QUEST! WE NEED A QUEST!” 

“Fine!” Tantalus shouted, his eyes blazing with anger. “You brats want me to assign a quest?” 

“YES!” 

“Very well,” he agreed. “I shall authorize a champion to undertake this perilous journey, to retrieve the Golden Fleece and bring it back to camp. Or die trying.” 

Percy let himself feel just a sliver of hope.

“I will allow our champion to consult the Oracle!” Tantalus announced. “And choose two companions for the journey. And I think the choice of champion is obvious.” 

Tantalus looked at him and Annabeth as if he wanted to flay them alive. “The champion should be one who has earned the camp’s respect, who has proven resourceful in the chariot races and courageous in the defense of the camp.  _ You _ shall lead this quest . . . Clarisse!” 

The fire flickered a thousand different colors. The Ares cabin started stomping and cheering, “CLARISSE! CLARISSE!” 

Clarisse stood up, looking stunned. Then she swallowed, and her chest swelled with pride. “I accept the quest!”

Really, he should have seen this coming. Percy scoffed, “Yes, someone who doesn't have the coordinates  _ or  _ any chance of surviving the Bermuda Triangle should lead the quest.” 

“Sit down!” yelled one of the Ares campers.

“You had your chance last summer!” 

“Yeah, he just wants to be in the spotlight again!” another said. Clarisse glared at him 

“I accept the quest!” she repeated. “I, Clarisse, daughter of Ares, will save the camp!” The Ares campers cheered even louder. 

Annabeth protested, and the other Athena campers joined in. Everybody else started taking sides - shouting and arguing and throwing marshmallows. Percy turned away from the Ares kids screaming at him for the coordinates; he’d been careful to keep that particular detail private this time, exactly because of this.

“Silence, you brats!” His tone stunned everyone. 

“Sit down!” he ordered. “And I will tell you a ghost story.” 

They all moved reluctantly back to their seats. The evil aura radiating from Tantalus was as strong and menacing as any monster’s. 

“Once upon a time there was a mortal king who was beloved of the Gods!” Tantalus put his hand on his chest, and Percy groaned quietly as he realized this was just some old creep holding Story Time.

“This king,” he said, “was even allowed to feast on Mount Olympus. But when he tried to take some ambrosia and nectar back to earth to figure out the recipe - just one little doggie bag, mind you - the gods punished him. They banned him from their halls forever! His own people mocked him! His children scolded him! And, oh yes, campers, he had horrible children. Children - just - like - you!” He pointed a crooked finger at several people in the audience, including Percy. 

“Do you know what he did to his ungrateful children?” Tantalus asked softly. “Do you know how he paid back the gods for their cruel punishment? He invited the Olympians to a feast at his palace, just to show there were no hard feelings. No one noticed that his children were missing. And when he served the gods dinner, my dear campers, can you guess what was in the stew?”

The son of Poesidon was becoming decidedly less impressed with every word. No one answered his question. 

“Oh, the gods punished him in the afterlife,” Tantalus croaked. “They did indeed. But he’d had his moment of satisfaction, hadn’t he? His children never again spoke back to him or questioned his authority. And do you know what? Rumor has it that the king’s spirit now dwells at this very camp, waiting for a chance to take revenge on ungrateful, rebellious children. And so . . . are there any more complaints, before we send Clarisse off on her quest?” 

Silence. Tantalus nodded at Clarisse. “The Oracle, my dear. Go on.” 

She shifted uncomfortably, like even she didn’t want glory at the price of being Tantalus’s pet. “Sir - ” 

“Go!” he snarled. 

She bowed awkwardly and hurried off toward the Big House. 

“What about you, Percy Jackson?” Tantalus asked. “No comments from our dishwasher?”

He said nothing in reply, mostly because he hadn’t heard the question beyond the first two words; almost entirely focused on twisting the ring on his thumb, mindlessly trailing his eyes over the Greek script for ‘mighty.’

“Good,” Tantalus said. “And let me remind everyone - no one leaves this camp without my permission. Anyone who tries. . . well, if they survive the attempt, they will be expelled forever, but it won’t come to that. The harpies will be enforcing curfew from now on, and they are always hungry! Good night, my dear campers. Sleep well.” 

With a wave of Tantalus’s hand, the fire was extinguished, and the campers trailed off toward their cabins in the dark.

Percy couldn’t really muster the energy to explain everything to Tyson, since his brother already got the basics. He wanted to go on a quest and wasn’t aloud, and was upset about it. Or, that’s probably how he looked on the outside, but behind the curtains Percy was lights-out inside. It wasn’t that he felt particularly upset about the evening, he’d expected most of it, really. He was just in one of his Moods. A wonderful, bubbling cocktail of executive dysfunction, depressive thoughts, (and occasionally Really Bad Ideas) social exhaustion, and probably half a dozen other things he couldn’t even begin to address. 

“You will go anyway?” Tyson asked. 

Percy shrugged, words feeling caught behind some invisible barrier in his throat. 

“I will help, if you go,” his brother said, ever the kind-hearted soul. 

He shrugged again. Was that even a real response to that statement? No. Does he care? Also no. 

Tyson looked down at the pieces of metal he was assembling in his lap - springs and gears and tiny wires. Beckendorf had given him some tools and spare parts, and now Tyson spent every night tinkering, working with incredibly small and delicate pieces for someone with such big hands. 

The cyclops made a sort of whimpering sound in the back of his throat. “Annabeth doesn’t like Cyclopes. You. . . don’t want me along?”

Something about the tears gathering in Tyson’s eye sparked a little bit of some emotion in Percy’s chest. He had no idea  _ what  _ emotion, exactly, just… something. 

“It’s not that, Tyson, ‘m just… tired right now.” Gods, what is  _ wrong _ with him? He can’t even manage the effort to comfort his own brother, even maintaining eye-contact was pushing the limits. 

Percy tried to reach over to Tyson, but the cyclops just folded up his tinkering project in an oilcloth, and lay down on his bunk bed, hugging his bundle like a teddy bear. When he turned toward the wall, Percy could see the scars on his back, like somebody had plowed over him with a tractor. 

“Daddy always cared for m-me,” he sniffled. “Now . . . I think he was mean to have a Cyclops boy. I should not have been born.” 

Well, at least it runs in the family. Not that he would say that to try and comfort his brother, empathy was only comforting up to a point, which stopped precisely at ‘sharing experiences of craving death’. But before he could come up with something to actually say, he heard snoring and realized Tyson had already fallen asleep. 

The moonlight was shining through the windows, and the smell of the strawberry fields faintly mixed with the salty air of Cabin Three. Dryads were laughing as they chased owls through the forest. 

Percy sighed, and with many slow and half-hearted movements, he sat up and put his shows on. He didn’t tie the laces, just tucked them into his shoe to avoid tripping - like he could afford that sort of disaster when he was in this sort of mood. He’d probably just let himself fall face-first onto a rock without blinking. 

He grabbed a beach blanket and a six-pack of Coke from under his bunk, already regretting the (very minimal) weight in his arms. 

The Cokes were against the rules. No outside snacks or drinks were allowed, but if you talked to the right guy in Hermes’s cabin and paid him a few golden drachma, he could smuggle in almost anything from a convenience store not too far from camp. Sneaking out after curfew was against the rules, too, but tonight seemed like the perfect night to break some rules. 

Besides, he had a meeting with Hermes to get to, whether he wanted to or not. As he left the cabin, he scribbled out a note on a piece of paper torn from one of his notebooks, with just a set of coordinates on it, leaving it on the steps to Ares’s cabin. Clarisse would find it when she got back from her patrol tonight; like it or not, he needed her in the Sea of Monsters for this quest, and she’d never make it without even the location. 

Then Percy left for the beach, dragging each step and just wanting to go back and lock himself in his cabin until he was capable of dealing with people again. 

But the Fates had never cared much for how Percy Jackson was feeling, so he couldn’t either. 

Percy spread his blanket out in the sand (read: dropped it and undid one corner with his foot) before sitting down and opening a coke. He sorta wished his dad would be the one to come to him tonight instead, maybe he’d pick up on the vibe and be… calmer than a certain God of Thieves. 

He was watching the Aurora Borealis when a voice spoke from beside him - “Beautiful, aren’t they?” 

Percy took a long sip of his soda. To his left was a guy in nylon running shorts and a New York City Marathon T-shirt; he was slim and fit, with salt-and-pepper hair and a sly smile. 

“May I join you?” he asked. “I haven’t sat down in ages.”

“Sure,” he shrugged. “Mind the sand.” 

Hermes smiled. “Your hospitality does you credit. Oh, and Coca-Cola! May I?” 

Percy shrugged again as the god untucked the other corner of the blanket, sitting down and opening one of the other sodas for himself. 

“Ah. . . that hits the spot. Peace and quiet at - ” A cell phone went off in his pocket. He checked his LCD display and cursed. “I’ve got to take this. Just a sec...” Then into the phone: “Hello?”

Hermes listened. There were mini-snakes writhing up and down the antenna right next to his ear. “Yeah,” the god said. “Listen - I know, but… I don’t care if he is chained to a rock with vultures pecking at his liver, if he doesn’t have a tracking number, we can’t locate his package… A gift to humankind, great… You know how many of those we deliver - Oh, never mind. Listen, just refer him to Eris in customer service. I gotta go.” He hung up. “Sorry. The overnight express business is just booming. Now, as I was saying - ” 

“You have snakes on your phone.” Percy doesn’t know why that seemed to stick out to him at the moment, it just felt like the right thing to say. 

“What? Oh, they don’t bite. Say hello, George and Martha.”

_ Hello, George and Martha, _ a raspy male voice said inside his head, not unlike how he spoke to horses. 

_ Don’t be sarcastic, _ said a female voice. 

_ Why not? _ George demanded.  _ I do all the real work. _

“Oh, let’s not go into that again!” The god slipped his phone back into his pocket. “Now, where were we. . . Ah, yes. Peace and quiet.” He crossed his ankles and stared up at the stars. “Been a long time since I’ve gotten to relax. Ever since the telegraph - rush, rush, rush. Do you have a favorite constellation, Percy?”

“Hmm… no favorites, really,” he commented. Maybe he did, and just didn’t remember it anymore. He seemed to have a lot of trouble with memory these days. “Maybe Cancer.” 

“Ah, any reasons for that one?”

“ ‘s Beth’s star sign.” 

“Annabeth Chase, you mean? That’s sweet.” 

Before Percy could be indignant about that comment, Martha the snake’s muffled voice came from his pocket: _ I have Demeter on line two. _

“Not now,” Hermes said. “Tell her to leave a message.” 

_ She’s not going to like that. The last time you put her off, all the flowers in the floral delivery division wilted. _

“Just tell her I’m in a meeting!” The god rolled his eyes. “Sorry again, Percy. Anyway, what was I saying? Right, it’s sweet how obvious your little crush is, it’s nice to see kids in love. I’m not some freak about it like Aphrodite, but still.” 

“It’s not just a crush,” he mumbled. “Gonna marry her someday.” Why was he even talking about this? They needed to get on to the questy stuff, now. 

Hermes just chuckled, shaking his head lightly. “Well, down to business, then. What are you going to do about this quest, Percy?” 

“I’m going, obviously. But I don't have permission. Makes things harder..” Gods, why of all people in the world, was Hermes cheering him up? Something about just talking like this, like everything was semi-normal, just… lightened something in his chest. 

“But that won’t stop you, will it?” 

“I have to go. My friend’s in trouble.” 

Hermes smiled. “I knew a boy once. . . oh, younger than you by far. A mere baby, really.” 

_ Here we go again, _ George said. _ Always talking about himself.  _

_ Quiet! _ Martha snapped.  _ Do you want to get set on vibrate? _

Hermes ignored them. “One night, when this boy’s mother wasn’t watching, he sneaked out of their cave and stole some cattle that belonged to Hermes.” 

“Did he get blasted to tiny pieces?” Percy smirked. 

“Hmm. . . no. Actually, everything turned out quite well. To make up for his theft, the boy gave Apollo an instrument he’d invented - a lyre. Apollo was so enchanted with the music that he forgot all about being angry.”

“What’s that have to do with my quest?”

“Well, sometimes doing something you aren’t supposed to doesn’t end too badly. In fact, young people usually don’t do what they’re told, but if they can pull it off and do something wonderful, sometimes they escape punishment.”

“So you want me to go anyway, and are just saying you support me in a roundabout way, like all gods do,” Percy said flatly. 

Hermes’s eyes twinkled. “Martha, may I have the first package, please?” 

Martha opened her mouth… and kept opening it until it was as wide as Percy’s arm. She belched out a stainless steel canister - an old-fashioned lunch box thermos with a black plastic top. The sides of the thermos were enameled with red and yellow Ancient Greek scenes - a hero killing a lion; a hero lifting up Cerberus, the three-headed dog. 

“That’s Hercules,” he said. “Why is it Herc-”

“Never question a gift,” Hermes chided. “This is a collector’s item from  _ Hercules Busts Heads _ . The first season.” 

“ _ Hercules Busts Heads? _ ”

“Great show.” Hermes sighed. “Back before Hephaestus-TV was all reality programming. Of course, the thermos would be worth much more if I had the whole lunch box - ” 

_ Or if it hadn’t been in Martha’s mouth,  _ George added. 

_ I’ll get you for that. _ Martha began chasing him around the caduceus - phone.

“So… this is a gift.” He was a little out of it, alright? Just making sure he has all his facts straight.

“One of two,” Hermes said. “Go on, pick it up.” 

Percy almost dropped it because it was freezing cold on one side and burning hot on the other. The cold side always faced the North, right. “It’s a compass.” 

Hermes looked surprised. “Very clever. I never thought of that. But its intended use is a bit more dramatic. Uncap it, and you will release the winds from the four corners of the earth to speed you on your way. Not now! And please, when the time comes, only unscrew the lid a tiny bit. The winds are a bit like me - always restless. Should all four escape at once… ah, but I’m sure you’ll be careful. And now my second gift. George?” 

_ She’s touching me, _ George complained as he and Martha slithered around the phone at Hermes’s hand. 

“She’s always touching you,” the god said. “You’re intertwined. And if you don’t stop that, you’ll get knotted again!” 

The snakes stopped wrestling. George unhinged his jaw and coughed up a little plastic bottle filled with chewable vitamins. The vitamins were shaped lime minotaurs. 

“Shaped like my worst enemy: bulls. I’ll eat them gladly.” 

Hermes picked up the bottle and rattled it. “The lemon ones, yes. The grape ones are Furies, I think. Or are they hydras? At any rate, these are potent. Don’t take one unless you really, really need it.”

“Right.” Like when you get turned into a guinea pig, which he hopefully would not be repeating this time, but who knows? “Why are you helping me, again?”

Hermes gave him a melancholy smile. “Perhaps because I hope that you can save many people on this quest, Percy. Not just your friend Grover.”

“You mean Luke.” 

Hermes didn’t answer.

“Look, not to crush your dreams or anything, but… I don’t think Luke can be saved. Even if he could, I wouldn’t be able to do it. We weren’t exactly… friends.” Something festered in his chest, stirring up memories of green eyes going glassy, and a familiar bronze knife.

Hermes gazed up at the stars. “My dear young cousin, if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the eons, it’s that you can’t give up on your family, no matter how tempting they make it. It doesn’t matter if they hate you, or embarrass you, or simply don’t appreciate your genius for inventing the Internet...” 

Percy smiled a little, but his hands were shaking. He set the gummies down, letting them rest on the ground beside him. The sand was soft under the blanket, but he couldn’t really enjoy the sensation at the moment. Hermes had made some of the heavy cotton in his head go away, but now he just felt empty and tired. 

After a few moments of silence, Hermes piped up again. “Look, Percy, do you understand what I’m saying about family?” 

He shrugged.

“You will someday.” Hermes got up and brushed the sand off his legs. “In the meantime, I must be going.” 

_ You have sixty calls to return,  _ Martha said.

_ And one thousand-thirty-eight e-mails, _ George added. _ Not counting the offers for online discount ambrosia. _

“And you, Percy,” Hermes said, “have a shorter deadline than you realize to complete your quest. Your friends should be coming right about… now.”

Indeed, Annabeth and Tyson were shouting for him in the distance. 

“I hope I packed well for you,” Hermes said. “I do have some experience with travel.” 

He snapped his fingers and three yellow duffel bags appeared at Percy’s feet. “Waterproof, of course. If you ask nicely, your father should be able to help you reach the ship.” 

“Ship?” 

Hermes pointed. Sure enough, a big cruise ship was cutting across Long Island Sound, its white-andgold lights glowing against the dark water. Why did that feel entirely too familiar? 

“You should hurry, the harpies will be here soon,” the God of Thieves cautioned. “Now, good night, cousin, and dare I say it? May the gods go with you.” He opened his hand and the phone transformed into a caduceus, before flying to him. 

_ Good luck _ , Martha told him.

_ Bring me back a rat _ , George said.

Standing and walking away, Hermes shimmered and vanished, leaving Percy alone with a thermos, a bottle of chewable vitamins, and zero time to mentally recover enough for anything even half as strenuous as a quest. 

Well, at least things never changed  _ too _ much in this world. Gods forbid he ever live in a stable environment. 

  
  
  
  
  



	6. The Princess Andromeda

He was staring at the waves when Annabeth and Tyson found him. 

“What’s going on?” Annabeth asked. “I heard you calling for help!” 

“Me, too!” Tyson said. “Heard you yell, ‘Bad things are attacking!’” 

“That wasn’t me,” Percy told them, eyes still focused on the moonlight reflecting on the water. “Hermes just lead you guys here because…” he tried to explain his conversation with the god as quickly as possible. Patrol harpies were already screeching somewhere in the distance. 

“Percy,” Annabeth said, “we have to do the quest.” 

“I know. You sure you’re ready to get expelled with me? Or eaten by harpies?” 

“If we fail, there won’t be any camp to come back to, and I promised I’d keep you from danger. I can only do that by coming with you. Tyson can stay behind and tell them - ” 

“I want to go,” Tyson said. 

“No!” Annabeth’s voice sounded close to panic. “I mean. . . Percy, come on. You know that’s impossible.”

“It’s not, and I’m not leaving him behind. Look, wise girl, I know you have a problem with cyclopses because of what they did to Thal-”

“Who told you that? Did Grover say something before he left?” The cruise ship was getting farther and farther away. They didn’t have time for slip-ups like this.

“I- yeah, let’s go with that. The point is, he’s coming with us, and you need to understand that not all monsters are the same.”

“Percy,” Annabeth said, trying to keep her cool, “we’re going to Polyphemus’s island! Polyphemus is an S-i-k . . . a C-y-k . . .” She stamped her foot in frustration. As smart as she was, Annabeth was dyslexic, too. They could’ve been there all night while she tried to spell Cyclops. “You know what I mean!”

“I do, and you’re still be racist, let’s go, the ship is getting further away than I’m comfortable with.” 

Percy picked up one of the gym backs, shoving the gummies and thermos inside, leaving Annabeth and Tyson to each grab their own. Stepping into the surf, letting the cool water (that should have been freeing, probably) connect him to the sea, he reached out mentally for some familiar creatures. In moments, three Hippocampi - or sea horses, he thought with a chuckle - broke the surface of the water. 

They looked like elegant white stallions in the front, (one much larger than the other two, for obvious reasons,) but in the back it was sort of like a mermaid tail. Their front hooves were also fins, but more low-key. 

“Hippocampi!” Annabeth said. “They’re beautiful.” 

The nearest one whinnied in appreciation and nuzzled Annabeth. 

“We’ll admire them later,” he said. “Come on!” 

“There!” a voice screeched behind them. “Bad children out of cabins! Snack time for lucky harpies!” 

Five of them were fluttering over the top of the dunes - plump little hags with pinched faces and talons and feathery wings too small for their bodies. They weren’t very fast, thank the gods, but they were vicious if they caught you. 

“Tyson, get on!” 

Tyson was still gaping at the hippocampi. 

“Tyson!” 

He seemed to get the idea, and threw his own duffel bag over his shoulder before climbing on the biggest hippocampus. 

The three of them raced across the waves on their steeds, Percy grinning like a fool as he urged his own hippocampus, Milkweed, to go faster, ducking a little further under the waves than his friends since he didn’t have to worry about getting wet. This was really where he belonged - really, why hadn’t he just jumped into the sea for a while to invigorate himself?

This wouldn’t last, Percy knew. When one of his Moods came on it was usually a real pain to ever feel right again, and he was sure something would break eventually, but for now he’d ride along the brief happiness he was given. 

He decided to focus on the ship ahead of them. The white hull was at least ten stories tall, topped with another dozen levels of decks with brightly lit balconies and portholes. The ship’s name was painted just above the bow line in black letters, lit with a spotlight.  _ PRINCESS ANDROMEDA.  _ Attached to the bow was a huge masthead - a three story-tall woman wearing a white Greek chiton, sculpted to look as if she were chained to the front of the ship. She was young and beautiful, with flowing black hair, but her expression was one of absolute terror.

“How do we get aboard?” Annabeth shouted over the noise of the waves, but the hippocampi already knew what they needed. They skimmed along the starboard side of the ship, riding easily through its huge wake, and pulled up next to a service ladder riveted to the side of the hull. 

“You first,” he told Annabeth. 

She slung her duffel bag over her shoulder and grabbed the bottom rung. Once she’d hoisted herself onto the ladder, her hippocampus whinnied a farewell and dove underwater. Annabeth began to climb. 

Percy let her get a few rungs up, then followed her. Finally it was just Tyson in the water. His hippocampus was treating him to 360º aerials and backward ollies, and Tyson was laughing so hysterically, the sound echoed up the side of the ship. 

“Tyson, come on, big guy!” 

“Can’t we take Rainbow?” he asked, his smile fading. 

“Sorry Tyson, Rainbow can’t climb ladders.” 

Tyson sniffled. He buried his face in the hippocampus’s mane. “I will miss you, Rainbow!” 

The hippocampus made a sad neighing sound in reply, not quite a sob but not the happiest goodbye either. 

“Don’t worry, man, we’ll see them again, I’m sure.” 

“Oh, please!” Tyson said, perking up immediately. “Tomorrow!” 

That convinced Tyson to say his farewells and grab hold of the ladder, though Percy didn’t make any exact promises. If nothing else, he could call for Rainbow at the docks after this was all over, though. With a final sad whinny, Rainbow the hippocampus did a back-flip and dove into the sea. 

The ladder led to a maintenance deck stacked with yellow lifeboats. There was a set of locked double doors, which Annabeth managed to pry open with her knife and a fair amount of cursing in Ancient Greek. 

Percy wasn’t super worried about stealth for the moment, but for the sake of looks he spoke lowly and made light steps around the hallways. It was always harder to sneak around in jeans, but it’s not like he hadn’t had any training in moving quietly. 

“Bad smell.” Tyson said, fiddling with the strap of his duffel bag. 

Annabeth frowned. “I don’t smell anything.” 

“Cyclopes are like satyrs,” Percy commented, peeking through a door to another empty cabin. “They can smell monsters.” 

Tyson nodded nervously. 

“Okay,” Annabeth said. “So what exactly do you smell?” 

“Something bad,” the cyclops answered. 

“Great,” Annabeth grumbled. “That clears it up.” 

The three of them came outside on the swimming pool level. There were rows of empty deck chairs and a bar closed off with a chain curtain. The water in the pool glowed eerily, sloshing back and forth from the motion of the ship. Above them fore and aft were more levels - a climbing wall, a putt-putt golf course, a revolving restaurant, but no sign of life. 

“We need a hiding place,” He said. “Somewhere safe to sleep.” 

“Sleep,” Annabeth agreed wearily.

They explored a few more corridors until they found an empty suite on the ninth level. The door was open, and there was a basket of chocolate goodies on the table, an iced-down bottle of sparkling cider on the nightstand, and a mint on the pillow with a handwritten note that said:  _ Enjoy your cruise! _

Opening their duffel bags for the first time and seeing what Hermes had packed, it looked like the guy had really thought of everything: extra clothes, toiletries, camp rations, a Ziploc bag full of cash, a leather pouch full of golden drachmas. He’d even managed to pack Tyson’s oilcloth with his tools and metal bits, and Annabeth’s cap of invisibility, which made them both feel a lot better. 

“I’ll be next door,” Annabeth said. “You guys don’t drink or eat anything.” 

“Think this place is enchanted?” 

She frowned. “I don’t know. Something isn’t right. Just. . . be careful.” 

He locked their doors. Tyson crashed on the couch. He tinkered for a few minutes on his metalworking project - which he still wouldn’t show Percy, which made Percy Think he already knew what it was - but soon enough he was yawning. He wrapped up his oilcloth and passed out. 

The half-blood lay awake on one of the beds, feeling exhausted with the adrenaline of being in the sea having abandoned him a while ago. Now he was just cold, and the sensation of being stuffed with cotton was back. 

He fell asleep… and had one of the worst dreams he’d had in weeks. 

A cold laugh echoed from the depths of the entrance to Tartarus. It felt weird being back there, terrifying and aggravating at the same time. 

_ If it isn’t the young hero. _ The voice was like a knife blade scraping across stone. _ On his way to another great victory. _

Percy wanted to shout and curse, to stomp on the chopped up-remains of the titan lord, but at the same tie he wanted to curl up into a ball and die there. 

_ Don’t let me stop you, _ the titan said.  _ Perhaps this time, when you fail, you’ll wonder if it’s worthwhile slaving for the gods. How exactly has your father shown his appreciation lately? _ Kronos’s laughter filled the cavern, and suddenly the scene changed. 

It was a different cave - Grover’s bedroom prison in Polyphemus’s lair. Grover was sitting at the loom in his soiled wedding dress, madly unraveling the threads of the unfinished bridal train. 

“Honeypie!” the monster shouted from behind the boulder. 

Grover yelped and began weaving the threads back together. The room shook as the boulder was pushed aside. Looming in the doorway was a Cyclops so huge he made Tyson look vertically challenged. He had jagged yellow teeth and gnarled hands as big as a person. He wore a faded purple T-shirt that said WORLD SHEEP EXPO 2001. He was at least fifteen feet tall, but the most startling thing was his enormous milky eye, scarred and webbed with cataracts. 

“What are you doing?” the monster demanded. 

“Nothing!” Grover said in his falsetto voice. “Just weaving my bridal train, as you can see.” 

The Cyclops stuck one hand into the room and groped around until he found the loom. He pawed at the cloth. “It hasn’t gotten any longer!”

“Oh, um, yes it has, dearest. See? I’ve added at least an inch.” 

“Too many delays!” the monster bellowed. Then he sniffed the air. “You smell good! Like goats!” 

“Oh.” Grover forced a weak giggle. “Do you like it? It’s  _ Eau de Chévre. _ I wore it just for you.” 

“Mmmm!” The Cyclops bared his pointed teeth. “Good enough to eat!”

“Oh, you’re such a flirt!” 

“No more delays!”

“But dear, I’m not done!” 

“Tomorrow!” 

“No, no. Ten more days.” 

“Five!” 

“Oh, well, seven then. If you insist.” 

“Seven! That is less than five, right?” 

“Certainly. Oh yes.” 

The monster grumbled, still not happy with his deal, but he left Grover to his weaving and rolled the boulder back into place. Grover closed his eyes and took a shaky breath, trying to calm his nerves. “Hurry, Percy,” he muttered. “Please, please, please!”

Percy awoke to the sound of a far-too-peppy man with an australian accent on the intercoms. 

“Good morning, passengers! We’ll be at sea all day today. Excellent weather for the poolside mambo party! Don’t forget million-dollar bingo in the Kraken Lounge at one o’clock, and for our special guests, disemboweling practice on the Promenade!”

The son of Poesidon grumbled something about not needing any more lessons in that particular subject, before rolling out of bed. 

Tyson groaned, still half asleep. He was lying facedown on the couch, his feet so far over the edge they were in the bathroom. “The happy man said… bowling practice?”

He was about to correct his brother when there was an urgent knock on the suite’s interior door. Annabeth stuck her head in - her blond hair in a rat’s nest. “Disemboweling practice?” 

Once they were all dressed, the three of them ventured out into the ship and were surprised to see other people. A dozen senior citizens were heading to breakfast. A dad was taking his kids to the pool for a morning swim. Crew members in crisp white uniforms strolled the deck, tipping their hats to the passengers. 

Nobody asked who they were, or even paid the campers much mind. But there was something wrong, and Percy only vaguely remembered something about monsters and running. As the family of swimmers passed us, the dad told his kids: “We are on a cruise. We are having fun.” 

“Yes,” his three kids said in unison, their expressions blank. “We are having a blast. We will swim in the pool.” They wandered off. 

“Good morning,” a crew member told us, his eyes glazed. “We are all enjoying ourselves aboard the Princess Andromeda. Have a nice day.” 

He drifted away. “Percy, this is weird,” Annabeth whispered. “They’re all in some kind of trance.” 

They saw the first monster in the cafeteria. It was a hellhound - a black mastiff with its front paws up on the buffet line and its muzzle buried in the scrambled eggs. It must’ve been young, because it was small compared to most, no bigger than a grizzly bear. Still, Percy felt the urge to go and pet it. Or maybe just kill it. It was always a toss-up how those things would react to affection. A middle-aged couple patiently waited in line for their turn at the eggs. 

“Not hungry anymore,” Tyson murmured. 

Before he or Annabeth could reply, a reptilian voice came from down the corridor, “Ssssix more joined yesssterday.” 

Annabeth gestured frantically toward the nearest hiding place - the women’s room - and all three of them ducked inside. Percy didn’t even care to feel embarrassed as two large somethings slithered passed the door. 

“Yesss,” a second reptilian voice said. “He drawssss them. Ssssoon we will be sssstrong.” The things slithered into the cafeteria with a cold hissing that might have been snake laughter. 

Annabeth looked at him. “We have to get out of here.” 

“Agreed. Lifeboat?” 

She nodded. “Lifeboat.” 

“Smells bad,” Tyson agreed. “And dogs eat all the eggs. Annabeth is right. We must leave the restroom and ship.”

Another voice spoke from the other side of the door. 

“-only a matter of time. Don’t push me, Agrius!” It was Luke, beyond a doubt. But strangely enough, he didn’t feel his blood boiling like it usually did when he saw the guy these days; he just felt sad. 

“I’m not pushing you!” another voice growled, presumably Agrius. “I’m just saying, if this gamble doesn’t pay off-” 

“It’ll pay off,” Luke snapped. “They’ll take the bait. Now, comme, we’ve got to get to the admiralty suite and check on the casket.” 

Their voices receded down the corridor. 

Tyson whimpered. “Leave now?” 

Percy and Annabeth exchanged a look. “We can’t,” he sighed. “Not yet.” 

“We have to find out what Luke is up to,” Annabeth agreed. “And if possible, we’re going to beat him up, bind him in chains, and drag him to Mount Olympus.”

Even if he already knew what Luke’s endgame was, and that they were walking into just about the most obvious kind of trap, it’d be good to get a refresher on some of the smaller details. They might be further along in their plans than last time. Maybe he’d even be able to convince Luke this was all stupid. 

Probably not. But he owed it to Hermes to at least try.

Annabeth volunteered to go alone since she had the cap of invisibility, but Percy didn’t like that plan. He wanted to go alone, and asked her if he could borrow the hat while she and Tyson set up an escape plan. If they could have one of those lifeboats in the water by the time he finished listening in on Luke and his cronies, it’d be much easier to get away.

“Nobody go!” Tyson voted. “Please?” 

Annabeth reluctantly agreed to his plan, after lots of whisper-arguing before he reminded her they were running out of time, and of anyone in their group he had the least attachments to the enemy while also not being over six-feet tall and built like the abominable snowman.

Percy made sure Riptide was ready in his pocket, with the thermos and gummies at the top of his bag. Tyson didn’t have any problem carrying all three duffel bags, doing so as easily as Percy could carry a backpack. They snuck through the corridors, following the YOU ARE HERE signs, before eventually splitting up just a little ways away from deck thirteen, where the admiralty suite was supposed to be. His friends ducked around the few glass-eyed passengers to start lowering one of the lifeboats as quietly as possible, while he headed on to the suite. 

As he came up to the suite, Percy ended squeezing himself against a wall to avoid hitting two guys coming down the hall.. 

“You see that Aethiopian drakon in the cargo hold?” one of them said. 

The other laughed. “Yeah, it’s awesome.”

“I hear they got two more coming,” the more familiar voice said. “They keep arriving at this rate, oh, man - no contest!” The voices faded down the corridor as he watched them go. 

Percy vaguely recalled Chris Rodriguez from his time in the Hermes cabin last year as fellow undetermined campers, but more predominantly for what happened to the poor guy later into the titan war. He’d gone insane in the labyrinth, and Clarisse unsuccessfully tried to nurse him back to health. It was definitely one of the more painful casualties of the war that Percy had seen, even if he was never particularly close with him.

But Chris and whoever else was with him were disappearing around a corner before he could think of anything else to do. Really, what could he say? ‘Hey! I’m from the future, and if you don’t quit Luke’s army you’ll go crazy and die!’? Right now, the threat of Luke (and, by extension, Kronos) discovering a traitor was definitely a million times more terrifying than some thirteen-year-old shouting that he knew the future. 

Percy felt an evil presence further down the corridor, prompting him to go faster. Through a glass wall looking down into the multistory canyon in the middle of the ship, he could see a group of monsters that had assembled in front of the candy store: a dozen Laistrygonian giants, two hellhounds, and a few Scythian Dracaenae, or Dragon women. The monsters made a semicircle around a young guy in Greek armor who was hacking on a straw dummy, which was wearing an orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. 

As he watched, the guy in armor stabbed the dummy through its belly and ripped upward. Straw flew everywhere. The monsters cheered and howled. Percy moved on. 

At the end of the hallway were double oak doors that looked like they must lead somewhere important, and which he knew opened up into Luke’s sort of conference room. Percy could hear voices from inside once he was just a few feet away. 

“-the prophecy ourselves. The fools won’t know which way to turn.” 

Another voice, Agrius, spoke up . “You really think the old horseman is gone for good?” 

Luke laughed. “They can’t trust him. Not with the skeletons in his closet. The poisoning of the tree was the final straw.”

Oh, so that was where his burning hatred had gone. It burst through the dam at those words - how could Chiron still mean  _ nothing  _ to Luke? After all that the centaur did for his campers? 

Just as the ringing in his ears died down enough to start listening again, he almost wished he’d just walked away. 

“Quiet!” Agrius hissed.

Then Luke’s voice, whispering“Are you sure?” 

“Yes, right outside.” 

Too late, Percy turned to run when the doors of the stateroom burst open and there was Luke, flanked by two hairy giants armed with javelins, their bronze tips aimed right at him, even with Annabeth’s hat on. Invisibility doesn’t mask smell, apparently. Sighing, he tugged the cap off and tucked it into a pocket before raising his hands in surrender. 

“Well,” Luke said with a crooked smile. “If it isn’t my favorite cousin. Come right in.”

  
  
  
  
  
  



	7. Hydras and doughnuts

The stateroom was beautiful, objectively; huge windows curved along the back wall, looking out over the stern of the ship. Green sea and blue sky stretched all the way to the horizon. A Persian rug covered the floor. Two plush sofas occupied the middle of the room, with a canopied bed in one corner and a mahogany dining table in the other. The table was loaded with food - pizza boxes, bottles of soda, and a stack of roast beef sandwiches on a silver platter. 

On the less beautiful side, on a velvet dais at the back of the room lay a ten-foot-long golden casket. A sarcophagus, engraved with Ancient Greek scenes of cities in flames and heroes dying grisly deaths. Inside? Whatever was currently left of Kronos. 

“Well,” Luke said, spreading his arms proudly. “A little nicer than Cabin Eleven, huh?” He’d changed since last summer. Instead of Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt, he wore a button-down shirt, khaki pants, and leather loafers. His sandy hair, which used to be so unruly, was now clipped short. And propped against the sofa was his magical sword, Backbiter, glinting strangely with its half-steel, half-Celestial bronze blade that could kill both mortals and monsters. 

“Sit,” he said. He waved his hand and a dining chair scooted itself into the center of the room. Percy sat, to be polite. Also, he was still tired and could use the break. Luke smiled, and took a seat for himself on the sofa, propping his feet up on the coffee table.

Luke’s large friends were still pointing their javelins at Percy. They looked like twins, but definitely not human ones. They stood about eight feet tall, and wore only blue jeans, probably because their enormous chests were already shag-carpeted with thick brown fur. They had claws for fingernails, feet like paws. Their noses were snoutlike, and their teeth were all pointed canines. 

“Where are my manners?” Luke said smoothly. “These are my assistants, Agrius and Oreius. Perhaps you’ve heard of them.” 

“They’re the sons of some lady Aphrodite tricked into falling in love with a bear for becoming a huntress of Artemis.” 

“That's exactly right! A sad tale, really. You know Percy, I never really took you for the studious type.” 

“I’m not. I’ve just listened to a lot of people monologue about their tragic backstories as they were about to kill me. Funnily enough, none of them ever got the job done… wonder why that is.” 

Luke’s smile never faded, but his eyes took on a sharper look. 

“Well, Percy, we let you survive another year, but that won’t last long, I assure you. I hope you appreciated it. How’s your mom? How’s school?”

“She’s fine. Having a real fun time being alive and all. School’s kinda boring though, but I did meet Tyson there.” 

“Right, you’re traveling with a cyclops. Can’t imagine Annabeth was too happy about that, huh?”

“Wise girl’s warming up to it. I know it’s hard for her, cause a cyclops killed Thalia, but not all monsters are the same. Some of them are quite nice, really.” Like Bob, Tyson, Cerberus if you have a rubber ball… 

“I’m sure. So because your father claimed him, you’re letting him cling to your coattails as you go on yet another pointless quest for the gods.”

Percy sighed, and tapped his fingers on the arm rests of his chair, thinking of what to say next. He needed  _ some  _ sort of game plan, here. But what could he even say to make Luke let him go, at this point? 

Well, there was always… but. Would he seriously even  _ consider  _ telling Luke over anyone else? Would he really tell his enemy over his friends? 

Eh, it’s not like he’s ever been known for being particularly smart. 

“I guess it is kinda pointless. Someday the gods or someone will cause enough destruction to end the world, anyway. That’s just inevitable. But I’d prefer to keep this place as clean as I can until I no longer have to live in it.” 

“See? You  _ do _ get it, I knew you could. The gods are worthless, and just using you, Percy. Do you have any idea what’s in store for you if you reach your sixteenth birthday? Has Chiron even told you the prophecy?”

“He didn’t have to, I pretty much got the gist. But you know what, Luke?” He asked, slowly rising from his seat. The bear twins jerked, pressing the business-end of their javelins against his throat. Luke held up a hand, and they lowered their weapons. Percy stepped over to the sofa, sitting down right next to the blond, and leaned in close to speak at a volume where no one else would hear them. 

“Sometimes, prophecies have double-meanings. I’ve seen what the next decade and a half have in store, and you wanna know who isn’t in it? You. Or Kronos, for the most part,” he finished with a manic grin, trying to channel the strongest ‘don’t fuck with me’ vibes he could. 

Luke obviously didn’t believe him, but the longer Percy just sat there, shoulder-to-shoulder with his enemy and not backing down a bit, the more nervousness creeped into his eyes. Though it looked more like he was nervous about little Percy Jackson having gone insane, than like he was actually scared of the threat he’d just heard.

“You really believe that, don’t you?” was all the son of Hermes said. Not, ‘you’re telling the truth,’ just, ‘you believe what you’re saying, even if it’s not actually true.’ It was probably the best Percy was going to get, intimidation-wise. 

“I guess I do. And Hermes still believes in you, no matter how angry you are. He helped me come here, because he wanted me to save you, regardless of whether or not it’s possible.” 

_ “Angry?” _ Luke roared.  _ “Believes  _ in me? He abandoned me, Percy! I want Olympus destroyed, every throne crushed to rubble! You tell Hermes it’s going to happen, too. Each time a half-blood joins us, the Olympians grow weaker and we grow stronger.  _ He _ grows stronger.” Luke pointed to the gold sarcophagus. 

“Maybe. But it still won’t be strong enough.”

He picked up something that looked like a TV remote and pressed a red button, furious and undoubtedly done with this conversation. Within seconds the door of the stateroom opened and two uniformed crew members came in, armed with nightsticks. They had the same glassy-eyed look as the other mortals, but that didn’t make them any less dangerous. 

“Security,” Luke said. “We have some stowaways. Take this one and then find his friends, they’re on the boat, I’m sure.” 

“Yes, sir,” they said dreamily.

Luke turned to Oreius. “It’s time to feed the Aethiopian drakon. Take this fool below and show him how it’s done.”

Oreius grinned stupidly. “Hehe! Hehe!”

“Let me go, too,” Agrius grumbled. “My brother is worthless. The Cyclops-”

“Is no threat,” Luke said. He glanced back at the golden casket, as if something were troubling him.

“Agrius, stay here. We have important matters to discuss.”

“But-”

“Oreius, don’t fail me. Stay in the hold to make sure the drakon is properly fed.”

Oreius prodded Percy with his javelin and herded him out of the stateroom, followed by the two human security guards.

As he walked down the corridors with Oreius poking him in the back with a javelin, he thought about what he’d done. He hadn’t explicitly  _ said  _ time travel, the blond might think he was just talking about a prophetic dream. Still… 

They exited the corridor amidships and walked across an open deck lined with lifeboats. He knew Tyson and Annaeth were nearby, he could feel their lifeboat in the water, hugging the ship maybe twenty feet to his right. But thirty feet away was the pool, where that father and his kids were playing like it was some sort of commercial for pool noodles or something. 

When they got about halfway to the elevators on that lead down to the hold, Percy reached out to the chlorinated water on his left. It didn’t feel like the trillions of gallons of water all around them, so it was easier to focus on, in a way. In one quick move, he brought the water down in one large, powerful wave to knock the bear-twin back; as soon as the sharp point of the javelin was no longer pressing into his back, he dove right and ran for the side of the boat. 

Swinging over the edge and dropping into the waves (just a few feet off, dammit,) beside Annabeth and Tyson, he hauled himself into the lifeboat and commanded the waves to push them quickly away from the Princess Andromeda. It wasn’t fast enough though, since he could only push so hard without fear of flipping them over, and arrows were whizzing just over their heads and threatening to puncture the boat.

“Thermos!” he yelled. 

“What?” Annabeth must’ve thought he’d lost his mind. She was holding on to the boat straps for dear life, her hair flying straight up like a torch. 

But Tyson understood. He managed to open Percy’s duffel bag and take out Hermes’s magical thermos without losing his grip on it or the boat. More arrows and javelins whistled past. 

He grabbed the thermos and silently prayed he was holding it correctly. 

“Hang on!” 

“I am hanging on!” Annabeth yelled. 

“Tighter!”Hooking his feet under the boat’s inflatable bench, Tyson grabbing him and Annabeth by the backs of their shirts, Percy gave the thermos cap a quarter turn. Instantly, a white sheet of wind jetted out of the thermos and propelled them forward, in a terrifying jolt. 

The wind seemed to laugh as it shot from the thermos, like it was glad to be free. Once they stabilized, and he was holding it more or less straight, they were whizzing along like a speed boat, salt spray in their faces and nothing but sea ahead. There was a wail of outrage from the ship behind them, but the trio was already well out of weapon range. The  _ Princess Andromeda _ faded to the size of a white toy boat in the distance, and then it was gone.

As they practically flew over the water, Percy explained his conversation with Luke, though not exactly verbatim, of course. Annabeth insisted they send an Iris message to Chiron - they had to tell someone about Luke’s plans, and who else could they really trust at this point? 

The wind from the thermos stirred up a nice sea spray that made a rainbow in the sunlight - perfect for an Iris message - but the connection was still poor. When Annabeth threw a gold drachma into the mist and prayed for the rainbow goddess to show them Chiron, his face appeared all right, but there was some kind of weird strobe light flashing in the background and rock music blaring, like he was at a dance club. 

They told him about sneaking away from camp, and Luke and the Princess Andromeda and the golden box for Kronos’s remains, but between the noise on his end and the rushing wind and water on their end, Percy isn’t confident in how much he heard. 

“Percy,” Chiron yelled, “you have to watch out for - ” His voice was drowned out by loud shouting behind him - a bunch of voices whooping it up like Comanche warriors. 

“What?” Percy yelled. 

“Curse my relatives!” Chiron ducked as a plate flew over his head and shattered somewhere out of sight. “Annabeth, you shouldn’t have let Percy leave camp! But if you do get the Fleece-” 

“Yeah, baby!” somebody behind Chiron yelled. 

“Woohoooooo!” The music got cranked up, subwoofers so loud it made the lifeboat vibrate. “-Miami,” Chiron was yelling. “I’ll try to keep watch-” 

Their misty screen smashed apart like someone on the other side had thrown a bottle at it, and Chiron was gone. 

An hour later they spotted land - a long stretch of beach lined with high-rise hotels. The water became crowded with fishing boats and tankers, and a coast guard cruiser passed on their starboard side, then turned like it wanted a second look. It isn’t every day you see a yellow lifeboat with no engine going a hundred knots an hour, manned by three kids. 

“That’s Virginia Beach!” Annabeth said as they approached the shoreline. “Oh my gods, how did the Princess Andromeda travel so far overnight? That’s like-” 

“Five hundred and thirty nautical miles,” Percy said. 

She stared at him “How did you know that?” 

“My dad. I always know where I am at sea.” 

Annabeth thought for a moment. “Percy, what’s our position?” 

“36 degrees, 44 minutes north, 76 degrees, 2 minutes west,” he said immediately, then shook his head. “Don’t do that.” 

“This is so cool.” 

“I am not your personal compass, wise girl.”

“It sounds like you are, seaweed brain.” 

Tyson tapped his shoulder. “Other boat is coming.” 

Looking back, he saw the coast guard was definitely on their tail now. Its lights were flashing and it was gaining speed. 

“We can’t let them catch us,” he said. “They’ll ask too many questions.” 

“Keep going into Chesapeake Bay,” Annabeth instructed. “I know a place we can hide.” He didn’t ask questions, mostly remembering where they were trying to go, and loosened the cap of the thermos a little more to gain speed. A fresh burst of wind sent them rocketing around the northern tip of Virginia Beach and into Chesapeake Bay. The coast guard boat fell farther and farther behind. 

He didn’t slow down until the shores of the bay narrowed on either side, and they’d entered the mouth of a river. He could feel the change from saltwater to fresh distinctly, and felt the rush of power from his father leave him. Technically any water could heal him and, at times, invigorate him, but it was like the difference between a soda and a triple-shot espresso. Percy couldn’t pinpoint his exact location anymore, just vaguely understood the distance between him and the nearest body of saltwater, so he followed Annabeth’s directions a little more closely. 

“There,” she said. “Past that sandbar.” 

They veered into a swampy area choked with marsh grass, and he beached the lifeboat at the foot of a giant cypress. Vine-covered trees loomed above, insects chirred in the woods. The air was muggy and hot, and steam curled off the river.

“Come on,” Annabeth said. “It’s just down the bank.” 

“What is?” I asked. 

“Just follow.” She grabbed a duffel bag. 

“And we’d better cover the boat. We don’t want to draw attention.” After burying the lifeboat with branches, he and Tyson followed Annabeth along the shore, feet sinking in red mud. A snake slithered past his shoe and disappeared into the grass. 

“Not a good place,” Tyson said. He swatted the mosquitoes that were forming a buffet line on his arm. 

After another few minutes, Annabeth said, “Here.” 

All he saw was a patch of brambles, but Percy waited for Annabeth as she moved aside a woven circle of branches, like a door, and the camouflage shelter became a little more obvious. 

He remembered this place, but only because of why it existed. “A half-blood hideout.” he commented as they stepped inside, looking at Annabeth. “You made this place?”

The inside was big enough for three, even with Tyson being the third. The walls were woven from plant material, like a Native American hut, but they looked pretty waterproof. Stacked in the corner was everything you could want for a campout - sleeping bags, blankets, an ice chest, and a kerosene lamp. There were demigod provisions, too - bronze javelin tips, a quiver full of arrows, an extra sword, and a box of ambrosia. The place smelled musty, like it had been vacant for a long time. 

“Thalia and I,” she said quietly. “And Luke.” 

He felt an indescribable emotion as he heard those words for the second time. Not jealousy, like he’d once felt for Luke and Thalia having all those extra years with Annabeth. This was something that made his chest tight and heavy, almost like guilt. He worried at the clover charm on his necklace, tugging it a bit to feel the leather press into his neck. 

“So, you don’t think Luke will look for us here?” 

She shook her head. “We made a dozen safe houses like this. I doubt Luke even remembers where they are. Or cares.” She threw herself down on the blankets and started going through her duffel bag. Her body language made it pretty clear she didn’t want to talk. 

“Hey Tyson?” Percy called. “Would you mind scouting around outside? Like, look for a wilderness convenience store or something?” 

“Convenience store?” 

“Yeah, for snacks. Powdered donuts or something. Just don’t go too far.” 

“Powdered donuts,” Tyson said earnestly. “I will look for powdered donuts in the wilderness.” He headed outside and started calling, “Here, donuts!” Once he was gone, Percy sat down across from Annabeth. 

“Hey, I’m sorry about, y’know… going to see Luke alone.”

“It’s fine. You were right, I still… I just can’t give up on him yet.” She unsheathed her knife and started cleaning the blade with a rag. 

“That’s not a bad thing, you know. Not giving up on a friend is actually pretty kind, considering how he hurt you.”

“Look, Percy, just…” she paused for a moment. “Nevermind. Are you sure he didn’t say anything else when you talked?” 

“No,” was all he said. 

The following silence was interrupted when the door of the hut creaked open. Tyson crawled in. “Powdered donuts!” he said proudly, holding up a pastry box. 

Annabeth stared at him. “Where did you get that? We’re in the middle of the wilderness. There’s nothing around for-” 

“Fifty feet,” Tyson said. “Monster Donut shop - just over the hill!” 

“This is bad,” Annabeth muttered. 

They were crouching behind a tree, staring at the donut shop in the middle of the woods. It looked brand new, with brightly lit windows, a parking area, and a little road leading off into the forest, but there was nothing else around, and no cars parked in the lot. They could see one employee reading a magazine behind the cash register. That was it. 

On the store’s marquis, in huge black letters that even most demigods could read, it said: MONSTER DONUT 

A cartoon ogre was taking a bite out of the O in MONSTER. The place smelled good, like fresh baked chocolate donuts. 

“This shouldn’t be here,” Annabeth whispered. “It’s wrong.”

“You’re right. We’re not going in.” 

“But doughnuts!” Tyson whined. 

“It could be a nest,” Annabeth said, thinking that was enough explanation.

“Me and Annabeth can’t go in here, big guy. You were fine ‘cause you’re a cyclops, but whoever’s inside would probably eat us.” 

Tyson whimpered, probably still not getting the full picture but not wanting his friends to be eaten. He’d plowed through half a dozen donuts from his box and was getting powdered sugar all over his face.

Suddenly, Annabeth froze. “No - sudden - moves,” she murmured, like her life depended on it. “Very slowly, turn around.” 

Percy had only heard it himself a moment prior: a scraping noise, like something large dragging its belly through the leaves. He turned to see a rhino-sized Hydra moving through the trees. It was hissing, its front half writhing in all different directions as the seven heads all sniffed and poked around in different directions.

Its skin was leathery, and under each neck it wore a plastic bib that read: I’M A MONSTER DONUT KID! 

His hand drifted into his pocket, settling over Riptide but not drawing it just yet. A lot of monsters have terrible eyesight, it was possible the Hydra might pass them by. But if he uncapped his sword now, the glow of celestial bronze would get its attention for sure.

The Hydra was only a few feet away. It seemed to be sniffing the ground and the trees like it was hunting for something; then he noticed that two of the heads were ripping apart a piece of yellow canvas - one of their duffel bags. The thing had already been to the campsite and was just following their scent. Each head was diamond-shaped, like a rattlesnake’s, but the mouths were lined with jagged rows of shark like teeth. 

Tyson was trembling. He stepped back and accidentally snapped a twig. Immediately, all seven heads turned toward the trio and hissed. 

“Scatter!” Annabeth yelled. She dove to the right. Percy rolled to the left. 

One of the Hydra heads spat an arc of green liquid that shot past his shoulder and splashed against an elm. The trunk smoked and began to disintegrate. The whole tree toppled straight toward Tyson, who still hadn’t moved, petrified by the monster that was now right in front of him. 

“Tyson!” Percy tackled the cyclops full-force, knocking him aside just as the Hydra lunged and the tree crashed on top of two of its heads. The Hydra stumbled backward, yanking its heads free then wailing in outrage at the fallen tree. All seven heads shot acid, and the elm melted into a steaming pool of muck.

“Move!” he told Tyson. 

He ran to one side and uncapped Riptide, hoping to draw the monster’s attention - it worked. The sight of celestial bronze is hateful to most monsters. As soon as the glowing blade appeared, the Hydra whipped toward it with all its heads, hissing and baring its teeth. 

Percy knew not to try and decapitate it, so he went with a long, vertical slice along one of it’s necks instead. Both neck and head were still attached to the body, but fell limp and dragged in the dirt with thick blood streaming from the wound. That had actually been a bit of an experiment he’d been wanting to try for forever in order to settle a bet, but never had the chance to. He was slightly surprised that it worked, and no new head spouted from the beast. Past (future?) Renya owed him five drachmas. 

“Well I was going to say we need fire,” Annabeth shouted. “But I guess that works too! Or go for it’s heart!”

Percy backed up toward the river. The Hydra followed. Annabeth moved in on his left and tried to distract one of the heads, parrying its teeth with her knife, but another head swung sideways like a club and knocked her into the muck. 

“No hitting my friends!” Tyson charged in, putting himself between the Hydra and Annabeth. As Annabeth got to her feet, Tyson started smashing at the monster heads with his fists so fast it reminded Percy of the whack-a-mole game at the arcade. But even Tyson couldn’t fend off the Hydra forever. 

They kept inching backward, dodging acid splashes and deflecting snapping heads. Percy managed to repeat his move from earlier and take down one more head, as did Annabeth. The knife meant she had to get closer, though, and she was thoroughly soaked in monster blood for the maneuver. Which looked awful for all of the minute that the stuff lasted before seemingly evaporating.

Eventually, as they were losing just a bit too much ground, he heard a strange sound - a chug-chug-chug that was so powerful it made the riverbank shake. 

“What’s that noise?” Annabeth shouted, keeping her eyes on the Hydra. 

“Steam engine,” Tyson said. 

“What?” Percy ducked as the Hydra spat acid over his head. Then he remembered, and sent a quick and silent, (and  _ very  _ reluctant) prayer of thanks to Ares. 

From the river behind them, a familiar female voice shouted: “There! Prepare the thirty-two pounder!” He didn’t dare look away from the hydra, but worried for a moment if now they just had an enemy on both fronts. 

A gravelly male voice said, “They’re too close, m’lady!”

“Damn the heroes!” Clarisse said. “Full steam ahead!” 

“Aye, m’lady.” 

“Fire at will, Captain!” 

Annabeth understood the message as well as he did, and they dove for the ground as an earth-shattering BOOM echoed from the river. There was a flash of light, a column of smoke, and the Hydra exploded right in front of them, showering the trio with nasty green slime that vaporized as soon as it hit, the way monster guts tend to do. 

“Gross!” Annabeth screamed.

“Steamship!” yelled Tyson. 

He stood, coughing from the cloud of gunpowder smoke that was rolling across the banks. Chugging toward them down the river was the strangest ship he’d seen in a long time. It rode low in the water like a submarine, its deck plated with iron, and in the middle was a trapezoid-shaped case mate with slats on each side for cannons. A flag waved from the top - a wild boar and spear on a bloodred field. 

Lining the deck were zombies in gray uniforms - dead soldiers with shimmering faces that only partially covered their skulls, like the ghouls in the Underworld guarding Hades’s palace. The ship was an ironclad. A Civil War battle cruiser. Percy could just make out the name along the prow in moss-covered letters, not that he needed to - that vessel was unforgettable. The CSS Birmingham. 

And standing next to the smoking cannon that had almost killed them, wearing full Greek battle armor, was Clarisse de la rue. “Losers,” she sneered. “But I suppose I have to rescue you. Come aboard.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	8. Sinking ships and drowning souls

“You are in so much trouble,” Clarisse said.   
They’d just finished a (very much unwanted) ship tour through dark rooms overcrowded with dead sailors. They saw the coal bunker, the boilers and engine, which huffed and groaned like it would explode any minute. There was also the pilothouse and the powder magazine and gunnery deck (Clarisse’s favorite) with two Dahlgren smoothbore cannons on the port and starboard sides and a Brooke nine-inch rifled gun fore and aft - all specially refitted to fire celestial bronze cannon balls.   
Everywhere they went, dead Confederate sailors stared, their ghostly bearded faces shimmering over their skulls. They approved of Annabeth because she told them she was from Virginia. They were interested in Percy, too, because his name was Jackson - like the Southern general - and he did nothing to dissuade the notion that he was the guy’s relative. Grandson, great nephew, whatever kept them on his side, really. No need to have any more rivalries with the dead.  
Tyson was terrified of them. All through the tour, he insisted Annabeth hold his hand, which she didn’t look too thrilled about.   
Finally, they were escorted to dinner. The CSS Birmingham captain’s quarters were about the size of a walk-in closet, but still much bigger than any other room on board. The table was set with white linen and china. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato chips, and Dr Peppers were served by skeletal crewmen. He wasn’t sure how he felt about food served by a bunch of dead confederate soldiers, but he was also hungry and had dealt with worse people in his life.   
“Tantalus expelled you for eternity,” Clarisse told us smugly.   
“Mr. D said if any of you show your face at camp again, he’ll turn you into squirrels and run you over with his SUV.”   
“They give you this ship?” He questioned idly. He knew that the soldiers, at least, were gifts from Ares, but he wasn’t sure about the boat.   
“’Course not. My father did.”   
“Ares, huh?”  
Clarisse sneered. “You think your daddy is the only one with sea power?The spirits on the losing side of every war owe a tribute to Ares. That’s their curse for being defeated. I prayed to my father for a naval transport and here it is. These guys will do anything I tell them. Won’t you, Captain?”   
The captain stood behind her looking stiff and angry. His glowing green eyes fixed Percy with a hungry stare. “If it means an end to this infernal war, ma’am, peace at last, we’ll do anything. Destroy anyone.”   
Clarisse smiled. “Destroy anyone. I like that.”   
Tyson gulped.   
“Clarisse,” Annabeth said, “Luke might be after the Fleece, too. We saw him. He has a cruise ship full of monsters, and spies at camp so he might know the coor-”   
“Good! I’ll blow him out of the water.”   
“You don’t understand,” Annabeth said. “We have to combine forces. Let us help you-”   
“No!” Clarisse pounded the table. “This is my quest, smart girl! Finally I get to be the hero, and you two will not steal my chance.”   
“Where are your cabin mates, Clarisse?” Percy asked. “You were allowed to take two friends, but all I see are ghosts.”   
“They didn’t... I let them stay behind. To protect the camp.”   
“You mean no one else wanted to come on a suicide mission like this. Either because they don’t want to help you, or Tantalus doesn’t.”   
“Shut up, Prissy! I don’t need them! Or you!”   
“Clarisse,” he said, “Tantalus is using you. He doesn’t care about the camp. He’d love to see it destroyed. He’s setting you up to fail.”  
“No! I don’t care what the Oracle-” She stopped herself.   
“What? What did the Oracle tell you?”   
“Nothing.” Clarisse’s ears turned pink. “All you need to know is that I’m finishing this quest and you’re not helping. On the other hand, I can’t let you go...”   
“So we’re prisoners?” Annabeth asked.   
“Guests. For now.” Clarisse propped her feet up on the white linen tablecloth and opened another Dr Pepper. “Captain, take them below. Assign them hammocks on the berth deck. If they don’t mind their manners, show them how we deal with enemy spies.” 

The dream came as soon as he fell asleep, which was surprisingly quick all things considered.   
Grover was sitting at his loom, desperately unraveling his wedding train, when the boulder door rolled aside and the Cyclops bellowed, “Aha!”   
Grover yelped. “Dear! I didn’t - you were so quiet!”   
“Unraveling!” Polyphemus roared. “So that’s the problem!”   
“Oh, no. I - I wasn’t-” “Come!” Polyphemus grabbed Grover around the waist and half carried, half dragged him through the tunnels of the cave. Grover struggled to keep his high heels on his hooves. His veil kept tilting on his head, threatening to come off.   
The Cyclops pulled him into a warehouse -size cavern decorated with sheep junk. There was a wool covered La-Z-Boy recliner and a wool-covered television set, crude bookshelves loaded with sheep collectibles - coffee mugs shaped like sheep faces, plaster figurines of sheep, sheep board games, and picture books and action figures. The floor was littered with piles of sheep bones, and other bones that didn’t look exactly like sheep - the bones of satyrs who’d come to the island looking for Pan.   
Polyphemus set Grover down only long enough to move another huge boulder. Daylight streamed into the cave, and Grover whimpered with longing. Fresh air!   
The Cyclops dragged him outside to a hilltop overlooking the most beautiful island Percy had ever seen, to this day. It was shaped kind of like a saddle cut in half by an ax, with lush green hills on either side and a wide valley in the middle, split by a deep chasm that was spanned by a rope bridge. Beautiful streams rolled to the edge of the canyon and dropped off in rainbow-colored waterfalls. Parrots fluttered in the trees. Pink and purple flowers bloomed on the bushes. Hundreds of man-eating sheep grazed in the meadows, their wool glinting strangely like copper and silver coins.   
And at the center of the island, right next to the rope bridge, was an enormous twisted oak tree with something glittering in its lowest bough. The Golden Fleece. Even in a dream, Percy could feel its power radiating across the island, making the grass greener, the flowers more beautiful. He could almost smell the nature magic at work, and knew it must be practically overwhelming for a satyr.  
Grover whimpered.   
“Yes,” Polyphemus said proudly. “See over there? Fleece is the prize of my collection! Stole it from heroes long ago, and ever since - free food! Satyrs come from all over the world, like moths to flame. Satyrs good eating! And now-”   
Polyphemus scooped up a wicked set of bronze shears. Grover yelped, but Polyphemus just picked up the nearest sheep like it was a stuffed animal and shaved off its wool. He handed a fluffy mass of it to Grover. “Put that on the spinning wheel!” he said proudly. “Magic. Cannot be unraveled.”   
“Oh… well… ”   
“Poor Honeypie!” Polyphemus grinned. “Bad weaver. Ha-ha! Not to worry. That thread will solve problem. Finish wedding train by tomorrow!”   
“Isn’t that… thoughtful of you!”   
“Hehe.”   
“But - but, dear,” Grover gulped, “what if someone were to rescue - I mean attack this island?” Grover looked straight at Percy, and he knew he was asking for his friend’s benefit.   
“What would keep them from marching right up here to your cave?”   
“Wifey scared! So cute! Not to worry. Polyphemus has state-of-the-art security system. Have to get through my pets.”   
“Pets?” Grover looked across the island, but there was nothing to see except sheep grazing peacefully in the meadows. Percy understood it was the sheep that were dangerous, though.  
“And then,” Polyphemus growled, “they would have to get through me!” He pounded his fist against the nearest rock, which cracked and split in half. “Now, come!” he shouted. “Back to the cave.”   
Grover looked about ready to cry - so close to freedom, but so hopelessly far. Tears welled in his eyes as the boulder door rolled shut, sealing him once again in the stinky torch-lit dankness of the Cyclops’s cave. 

The son of Poesidon awoke to alarm bells ringing throughout the ship.   
The captain’s gravelly voice commanded: “All hands on deck! Find Lady Clarisse! Where is that girl?” Then his ghostly face appeared above him. “Get up, Mr. Jackson. Your friends are already above. We are approaching the entrance.”   
“Entrancet?” Percy mumbled sleepily.  
The captain gave him a skeletal smile. “The entrance to The Sea of Monsters, of course.” 

Percy stuffed his few belongings that had survived the Hydra into a sailor’s canvas knapsack and slung it over his shoulder. He knew they would not be spending another night aboard the CSS Birmingham.   
He was on my way upstairs when something made him freeze. A presence nearby - all too familiar and unpleasant. For no particular reason, he felt like punching the nearest ghost confederate, or ripping out his own hair and kicking a wall. There were only two reasons for him to feel that sort of irrational anger, and as far as he could tell his Mood had decided to recede for the time being, leaving him at ‘semi-functional person’ levels.  
Instead of going up, he crept to the edge of the ventilation grate and peered down into the boiler deck. Clarisse was standing directly below, talking to an image that shimmered in the steam from the boilers - a muscular man in black leather biker clothes, with a military haircut, red-tinted sunglasses, and a knife strapped to his side. One of Percy’s least favorite Olympians: Ares, the god of war.  
“I don’t want excuses, little girl!” he growled.   
“Y-yes, father,” Clarisse mumbled.   
“You don’t want to see me mad, do you?”   
“No, father.”  
“No, father,” Ares mimicked. “You’re pathetic. I should’ve let one of my sons take this quest.”   
“I’ll succeed!” Clarisse promised, her voice trembling. “I’ll make you proud.”   
“You’d better,” he warned. “You asked me for this quest, girl. If you let that slimeball Jackson kid steal it from you-”   
“But the Oracle said-”   
“I DON’T CARE WHAT IT SAID!” Ares bellowed with such force that his image shimmered. “You will succeed. And if you don’t...” He raised his fist. Even though he was only a figure in the steam, Clarisse flinched.   
“Do we understand each other?” Ares growled.   
The alarm bells rang again. He heard voices coming near, officers yelling orders to ready the cannons. Percy crept back from the ventilation grate and made his way upstairs to join Annabeth and Tyson on the spar deck, all the while feeling a bitter, roiling sensation in his gut that had nothing to do with the God of War’s natural effect on other beings. 

“What’s wrong?” Annabeth asked. “Another dream?”   
He nodded, but didn’t say anything as he twisted the gold-plated ring on his thumb, feeling distinctly not-mighty.   
Clarisse came up the stairs right after him. He avoided looking directly at her. She grabbed a pair of binoculars from a zombie officer and peered toward the horizon.   
“At last. Captain, full steam ahead!”  
The sky was overcast. The air was hazy and humid, like steam from an iron. If he squinted real hard, he could just make out a couple of dark fuzzy splotches in the distance, but Percy quickly figured he’d just be better off sensing the path ahead by the movement of the waves. His senses told him they were somewhere off the coast of northern Florida, so they’d come a long way overnight, farther than any mortal ship should’ve been able to travel. Almost into the Sea of Monsters. The engine groaned as they increased speed.   
Tyson muttered nervously, “Too much strain on the pistons. Not meant for deep water.”   
After a few more minutes, the dark splotches ahead came into focus. To the north, a huge mass of rock rose out of the sea - an island with cliffs at least a hundred feet tall. About half a mile south of that, the other patch of darkness was a storm brewing. The sky and sea boiled together in a roaring mass.   
“Hurricane?” Annabeth asked.   
“No,” Clarisse and Percy said at once. She glared at him, before continuing: “Charybdis.”   
Annabeth paled. “Are you crazy?”   
“Only way into the Sea of Monsters. Straight between Charybdis and her sister Scylla.” Clarisse pointed to the top of the cliffs.   
It may not have been an actual hurricane occurring around them, but he could still feel the movements of the storm about them. Focusing on it too much was like trying to read road signs to ignore your carsickness; not at all helpful and likely to make you even more sick.   
“What about the Clashing Rocks?” Annabeth said. “That’s another gateway. Jason used it.”   
“I can’t blow apart rocks with my cannons,” Clarisse said. “Monsters, on the other hand...”   
“You are crazy,” Annabeth decided.   
“Watch and learn, Wise Girl.” Clarisse turned to the captain. “Set course for Charybdis!”   
“Aye, m’lady.” The engine groaned, the iron plating rattled, and the ship began to pick up speed.   
“We’re going to steam straight toward her, train our guns on her, and blow her to Tartarus!” The daughter of Ares declared. She said it with such relish he almost wanted to believe her.   
The engine hummed. The boilers were heating up so much they could feel the deck getting warm beneath their feet. The smokestacks billowed. The red Ares flag whipped in the wind.   
As they got closer to the monsters, the sound of Charybdis got louder and louder - a horrible wet roar like the galaxy’s biggest toilet being flushed. Every time Charybdis inhaled, the ship shuddered and lurched forward. Every time she exhaled, they rose in the water and were buffeted by ten-foot waves.   
As near as Percy could figure, it took Charybdis about three minutes to suck up and destroy everything within a half-mile radius. To avoid her, they’d have to skirt right next to Scylla’s cliffs. And as bad as Scylla might be, those cliffs were looking awfully good by the second.   
Undead sailors calmly went about their business on the spar deck. They’d fought a losing cause before, so this probably didn’t bother them. Or maybe they didn’t care about getting destroyed because they were already deceased. Neither thought was particularly comforting.   
Annabeth stood next to him, gripping the rail. “You still have your thermos full of wind?”   
Percy nodded. “But it’s too dangerous to use with a whirlpool like that. More wind might just make things worse.”   
“What about controlling the water?” she asked. “You’re Poseidon’s son. You’ve done it before.”   
She was right enough. No harm in trying.   
Charybdis was loud and powerful, he could feel it. Incredibly ancient and with a lot more practice at this than him. Still, he had the raw power of Poesidon at his grip, and the waves were more naturally inclined to follow his will.   
The waves only barely respond to his wishes, however. He managed to get the ship to stop rocking as much, but it was only enough to sail smoothly into their doom. Well, he was only a thirteen-year-old half-blood. Twenty eight in some senses, but still.   
Percy shook his head when Annabeth looked at him questioningly. “They’ll barely listen to me. I can’t change our course at all, just stabilize the boat a little.”   
“Well, keep doing that,” she asked, a silent plea in her eyes. “But we still need a backup plan. This isn’t going to work.”  
“Annabeth is right,” Tyson said. “Engine’s no good.”   
“What do you mean?” she asked.   
“Pressure. Pistons need fixing.” Before he could explain, the cosmic toilet flushed with a mighty roaaar! The ship lurched forward and he was thrown to the deck. They were in the whirlpool.   
“Full reverse!” Clarisse screamed above the noise. The sea churned around them, waves crashing over the deck. It felt like having something ripped painfully from his grasp. The iron plating was now so hot it steamed.  
“Get us within firing range! Make ready starboard cannons!”  
Dead Confederates rushed back and forth. The propeller grinded into reverse, trying to slow the ship, but they kept sliding toward the center of the vortex. A zombie sailor burst out of the hold and ran to Clarisse. His gray uniform was smoking. His beard was on fire. “Boiler room overheating, ma’am! She’s going to blow!”   
“Well, get down there and fix it!”   
“Can’t!” the sailor yelled. “We’re vaporizing in the heat.”   
Clarisse pounded the side of the casemate. “All I need is a few more minutes! Just enough to get in range!”   
“We’re going in too fast,” the captain said grimly. “Prepare yourself for death.”   
“No!” Tyson bellowed. “I can fix it.”   
Clarisse looked at him incredulously.  
“You?”  
“He’s a Cyclops,” Annabeth said. “He’s immune to fire. And he knows mechanics.”   
“Go!” yelled Clarisse.   
Percy really wanted to say no, but Tyson was their only hope. So instead, he started muttering a prayer to his father to keep his brother safe, and reached as far as his mental voice could to try and find a certain Hippocampi. Just in case.   
Tyson’s expression was determined - confident. “I will fix it. Be right back.” As he followed the smoldering sailor down the hatch, the ship lurched again - and then Percy saw Charybdis.   
She appeared only a few hundred yards away, through a swirl of mist and smoke and water. The first thing he noticed was the reef - a black crag of coral with a fig tree clinging to the top, an oddly peaceful thing in the middle of a maelstrom. All around it, water curved into a funnel, like light around a black hole.  
Then he saw the horrible thing anchored to the reef just below the waterline - an enormous mouth with slimy lips and mossy teeth the size of rowboats. And worse, the teeth had braces, bands of corroded scummy metal with pieces of fish and driftwood and floating garbage stuck between them. Charybdis was an orthodontist’s nightmare. She was nothing but a huge black maw with bad teeth alignment and a serious overbite, and she’d done nothing for centuries but eat without brushing after meals.   
As Percy watched, the entire sea around her was sucked into the void - sharks, schools of fish, a giant squid. Distantly, he was sad to see so many marine creatures get eaten so carelessly. But for the most part, he could feel the cotton-like feeling in his brain coming on and the looming desire to just jump into the sea and sink to the bottom to lie there forever.   
“Lady Clarisse,” the captain shouted. “Starboard and forward guns are in range!”   
“Fire!” Clarisse ordered.   
Three rounds were blasted into the monster’s maw. One blew off the edge of an incisor. Another disappeared into her gullet. The third hit one of Charybdis’s retaining bands and shot back at us, snapping the Ares flag off its pole.   
“Again!” Clarisse ordered.   
The gunners reloaded, but Percy knew it was hopeless. They would have to pound the monster a hundred more times to do any real damage, and they didn’t have that long. He wanted to do something, but all that he could manage was gripping onto the guardrails of the ship and focusing on the numbing chill in his fingers. This was really an awful time for his vision to get so blurry, and for everyone’s voices to fade beyond the sound of the storm.   
Then the vibrations in the deck changed. The hum of the engine got stronger and steadier. The ship shuddered and they started pulling away from the mouth. The ocean happily provided him with this information, with his other senses so out of whack.   
There were voices shouting in distance - or at least, they sounded far away and garbled.   
He gripped the rail tighter as the ship fought against the suction. The broken Ares flag raced past and lodged in Charybdis’s braces. They weren’t making much progress, but at least they’d stopped losing ground. Tyson had somehow given them enough juice to keep the ship from being sucked in.  
Suddenly, the mouth snapped shut. The sea died to absolute calm. Water washed over Charybdis. Then, just as quickly as it had closed, the mouth exploded open, spitting out a wall of water, ejecting everything inedible, including their cannonballs, one of which slammed into the side of the CSS Birmingham with a ding like the bell on a carnival game.   
They were thrown backward on a wave that must’ve been forty feet high. As best he could, Percy asked the sea to keep the ship from capsizing, pretty please, but they were still spinning out of control, hurtling toward the cliffs on the opposite side of the strait.   
Another smoldering sailor burst out of the hold. He stumbled into Clarisse, almost knocking them both overboard. More shouting. Something about Tyson, he was pretty sure.   
In the middle of the yelling, quick as lightning, something shot down from the sky, snatched up the captain, and lifted him away. All that was left were his leather boots. Scylla.   
Someone yelled as another column of reptilian flesh shot from the cliffs and snapped him up. It happened so fast Percy barely sensed it, but the continuous waves crashing over the deck were like extra hands. Or eyes, but it was more like how he imagined a blind person mentally interpreting braille.  
...Someone was shaking him. What? Oh right, they wanted his attention. Considering it was probably pretty important, he tried his best to listen. It still sounded garbled, like a radio broadcast overwhelmed by static, but he made out the words with some careful mental gap-filling.   
“Lifeboats!” Annabeth said. “Percy, we need to get to the lifeboats! Get the thermos.”   
“We have to get the boats ready!” Clarisse took Annabeth’s command. She and a few of her undead sailors uncovered one of the two emergency rowboats while Scylla’s heads rained from the sky like a meteor shower with teeth, picking off Confederate sailors one after another.   
Percy nodded dumbly in what he thought was Annabeth’s direction as he shakily stopp up, gripping the guardrails. He reached for her hand, and she didn’t protest as she led them to one of the lifeboats. His vision was still blurry, but he could see the stark orange of her camp t-shirt against the swimming grays and blues all around.   
They were just climbing over the rails to jump into the boat, when suddenly his feet weren’t touching the deck anymore. Percy was flying straight up, the wind whistling in his ears, the side of the cliff only inches from his face.   
Scylla had somehow caught him only by the knapsack, and was lifting him up toward her lair. Without thinking, he uncapped Riptide (abandoning the cap somewhere into the depths below) and swung wildly behind him until he managed to jab her right in a huge yellow eye. She grunted and dropped him.   
The fall would’ve been bad enough, considering he was a hundred feet in the air, but as he was falling, the CSS Birmingham exploded below with an ear-splitting KAROOM! The engine room blew, sending chunks of ironclad flying in either direction like a fiery set of wings.   
The lifeboats had managed to get away from the ship, but not very far. Flaming wreckage was raining down. Clarisse and Annabeth would either be smashed or burned or pulled to the bottom by the force of the sinking hull, and that was thinking optimistically, assuming they got away from Scylla.   
Then there was a different kind of explosion - the sound of Hermes’s magic thermos being opened a little too far. White sheets of wind blasted in every direction, scattering the lifeboats, lifting Percy out of his free fall and propelling him across the ocean. He couldn’t see anything as he spun in the air, got clonked on the head by something hard, and hit the water with a crash that would’ve broken every bone in his body if he hadn’t been the son of the Sea God.   
The last thing Percy remembered thinking was that he hoped Tyson was okay, and that this stupid Mood receded again by the time he woke up.


	9. Are we skipping this arc or not??

He woke up in a rowboat with a makeshift sail stitched of gray uniform fabric. Annabeth sat next to him, tacking into the wind. He tried to sit up and immediately felt woozy. 

“Rest,” she said. “You’re going to need it.” 

“Where’s… Tyson? Clarisse?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, Percy.” 

They sat in silence as the waves rocked them up and down. Percy could feel where they were and exactly where they needed to go, but everything about the Sea of Monsters was just  _ wrong.  _ It didn’t wholly belong to Poesidon - or anyone, really. At least Circe and her island were still a way away, so he could try to think of a plan for that disaster. 

Annabeth showed him some things she’d salvaged from the wreckage - Hermes’s thermos (now empty), a Ziploc bag full of ambrosia, a couple of sailors’ shirts, and a bottle of Dr Pepper. She’d fished him out of the water and found his knapsack, bitten in half by Scylla’s teeth. Most of his stuff had floated away, but Herme’s bottle of multivitamins, and of course Riptide were still at his disposal. Percy wondered if the vitamin bottle had some sort of enchantment on it to keep from losing it. Knowing Hermes? Probably. 

They sailed for hours. Now that they were in the Sea of Monsters, the water glittered a more brilliant green, like Hydra acid. The wind smelled fresh and salty, but it carried a strange metallic scent, too - like just before a thunderstorm. Or something even more dangerous. 

He told Annabeth that they were exactly one hundred thirteen nautical miles west by northwest of their destination, but that he didn’t have the energy to do much more but politely ask the sea not to turn on them right now.

No matter which way he turned, the sun seemed to shine straight into his eyes. They took turns sipping from the Dr Pepper, shading themselves with the sail as best they could. And they talked about his latest dream of Grover. 

By Annabeth’s estimate, there was less than twenty-four hours to find Grover, assuming the dream was accurate, and assuming the Cyclops Polyphemus didn’t change his mind and try to marry Grover earlier. 

“Yeah,” Percy mumbled. “Can’t ever trust monsters.” He’s not sure where that came from, exactly. He doesn't feel particularly bitter about Annabeth’s feelings towards Tyson anymore, but he does wish she’d finally give up her prejudices against his brother. 

Annabeth stared across the water. “I’m sorry, Percy. I was wrong about Tyson, okay? I wish I could tell him that.” 

He thought about Luke’s look of rage when he’d brought up Hermes. Would Percy have ever gone that far to get revenge against Poesidon, if his dad had sent him on some pointless quest before ditching him? He likes to think that he wouldn’t, considering he already  _ has  _ gone on plenty of pointless quests for the guy, but… at least Percy had never felt ignored by his father after being claimed. 

“Annabeth, what’s Chiron’s prophecy?” Only so much to talk about on this dingy, and he wonders if she’ll tell him the exact phrasing; wonders if it’s changed at all, like that extra line from the Oracle last year.  _ And your knowledge will be the meaning of your fate. _

She pursed her lips. “Percy, I shouldn’t-” 

“I know Chiron promised the gods he wouldn’t tell me, but you didn’t promise, right?” 

“Knowledge isn’t always good for you.” 

“Your mom is literally the goddess of wisdom. Try again, wise girl.” 

Annabeth let out a breath that may have been a laugh, but still looked unsure. “I know, seaweed brain. But every time heroes learn the future, they try to change it, and it never works.” 

“Trust me,” he said, meeting her eyes briefly. “I think we’re well past that.” 

Annabeth twisted her Yankees cap in her hands. “Percy, I don’t know the full prophecy, but it warns about a half-blood child of the Big Three - the next one who lives to the age of sixteen. That’s the real reason Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades swore a pact after World War II not to have any more kids. The next child of the Big Three who reaches sixteen will be a dangerous weapon.” 

_ Ha. Ha. Dangerous weapon. You mean a conductor to suicide beneficial to the gods.  _ Percy had come to terms with his feelings towards Luke Castellan a long time ago, with some outside help. He’d realized that, no matter how things ended, it was alright to still hate someone for hurting you and your friends. That didn’t mean he couldn’t  _ also  _ feel guilty about making a decision, and sad that someone’s life had to end to save a bunch of immortal beings missing any semblance of a moral backbone. 

“A weapon?”

“Because that hero will decide the fate of Olympus. He or she will make a decision that either saves the Age of the Gods, or destroys it.” 

He nodded, not liking the way his vision was going out of focus. “Probably why Kronos hasn’t just tried to make me spontaneously combust yet.”

She nodded. “You could be very useful to him. If he can get you on his side, the gods will be in serious trouble. But we’ll only know that you're the one if you survive three more years. That can be a long time for a half-blood.” She paused for a moment, maybe contemplating whether or not to continue. 

“When Chiron first learned about Thalia, he assumed she was the one in the prophecy. That’s why he was so desperate to get her safely to camp. Then she went down fighting and got turned into a pine tree and none of us knew what to think. Until you came along,” Annabeth finished with less fanfare than that sort of declaration deserved. 

He was saved from having to respond when a seagull swooped down out of nowhere and landed on their makeshift mast. Annabeth looked startled as the bird dropped a small cluster of leaves into her lap. 

“Land,” she said. “There’s land nearby!” 

Percy sat up. Sure enough, there was a line of blue and brown in the distance. Another minute and he could make out an island with a small mountain in the center, a dazzling white collection of buildings, a beach dotted with palm trees, and a harbor filled with a strange assortment of boats. The current was pulling their rowboat toward what looked like a tropical paradise. 

One that probably has more guinea pigs than pina coladas, though. 

“Welcome!” the lady with the clipboard said. 

She looked like a flight attendant - blue business suit, perfect makeup, hair pulled back in a ponytail. She shook their hands as they stepped onto the dock. With the dazzling smile she gave, you would’ve thought they’d just gotten off the Princess Andromeda rather than a banged-up rowboat. 

Then again, our rowboat wasn’t the weirdest ship in port. Along with a bunch of pleasure yachts, there was a U.S. Navy submarine, several dugout canoes, and an old-fashioned three-masted sailing ship. There was a helipad with a “Channel Five Fort Lauderdale” helicopter on it, and a short runway with a Learjet and a propeller plane that looked like a World War II fighter. 

“Is this your first time with us?” the clipboard lady inquired. 

Percy and Annabeth shared a look, before he turned to the woman and nodded. 

“First - time - at - spa,” the lady said as she wrote on her clipboard. “Let’s see...” She looked them up and down critically. “Mmm. An herbal wrap to start for the young lady. And of course, a complete makeover for the young gentleman.” 

The woman was busy jotting down notes, so he didn’t even bother to ask about the ‘full makeover’. 

“Right!” She said with a breezy smile. “Well, I’m sure C.C. will want to speak with you personally before the luau. Come, please.” 

Now, Percy had done his best to try and come up with any possible reason to turn down this offer once they got here. ‘It's a trap’ probably wouldn’t be a strong enough answer for Annabeth when they’d just spent most of the day sitting in a rowboat with only one can of soda between them. ‘I think Circe is running this spa and turning men into rodents’ was also a mute point, because he had no way to prove it. 

So what did he do? He followed politely and pulled on the leather cords of both his necklaces as a ringing noise started buzzing in his ears. The last thing he heard was Annabeth muttering “I guess it couldn’t hurt,” before a heavy weight settled around his shoulders and in his chest, and the world went a little hazy. He moved forward, following the general direction the others were going, but he didn’t really see anything in front of him. 

Percy knew the place was amazing, from vague memories. White marble and blue water everywhere you could see, terraces climbing up the side of the mountain, swimming pools on every level connected by waterslides and waterfalls and underwater tubes you could swim through. Fountains that sprayed water into the air, forming impossible shapes, like flying eagles and galloping horses. 

Tyson loved horses, he remembered. Tyson, right… where was he, again? The cyclops had come with them on this journey, at least at first right? Or maybe that was a different quest… 

A hand settled on his shoulder, making him pause. Percy could just barely understand that Annabeth was asking him something, but the words eluded him. He mumbled something he thought was reassuring and kept walking. 

As they headed up a staircase toward what he thought was the main building, a woman’s voice found it’s way inside his head. She was singing. Her voice drifted through the air like a lullaby, the words in some language other than Ancient Greek, but just as old - Minoan, maybe. Percy could still understand what she sang about - moonlight in the olive groves, the colors of the sunrise. And magic. Something about magic. 

They came into a big room where the whole front wall was windows. The back wall was covered in mirrors, so the room seemed to go on forever. Or maybe the room really was endless. There were a bunch of pristine white shapes just beyond his focus, probably furniture. At some point Percy had just stopped trying to admire their surroundings because it took too much effort away from his thoughts, but now he made the conscious effort to refocus his eyes. 

It didn’t last long, but he managed to discern the woman who sat at a loom the size of a big screen TV, her hands weaving colored thread back and forth with amazing skill. The tapestry shimmered like it was three dimensional—a waterfall scene so real you could see the water moving and clouds drifting across a fabric sky. Then he was lost to his thoughts of Tyson and horses and guinea pigs. 

Annabeth spoke with the singing woman some, and for a few moments Percy was mesmerized by her eyes. Those steely grey irises, that held such a bright spark to them in this moment. She looked happy. He wished he could make her happy more often, but life kept getting in the way. 

Percy pulled at the chords of his necklaces again, probably a little too hard but it felt good. It was better than the numbness in every other fibre of his body. The sound of squeaking and scratching brought him a moment of clarity, and his eyes shot to the animal cage in one corner of the room. Without a second thought, he walked over to it and put his hand up against the metal bars. 

The guinea pigs scratched at him hard enough to draw blood, but he didn’t mind. He knew how they felt - desperately trying to get  _ someone’s  _ attention and finally be returned to normal. 

“-cy? Percy are you sure you’re alright?” 

“They’re trapped.” 

“What, the guinea pigs?” 

“She  _ trapped them.”  _

“They’re just pets, Percy. I’m sure they’re happy enough in there.” 

He shook his head. She doesn’t  _ get  _ it. 

The singing woman -  _ Circe _ \- came over and set a hand on Annabeth’s shoulder. “My dear, aren’t you ready to achieve your true potential? Leave this boy to me, he  _ really  _ needs a full make-over.” 

Annabeth gave him a look. He wasn’t sure what she was trying to convey. So he set a hand on her arm instead, willing her not to leave him behind. He didn’t want to be trapped, too. 

“I really don’t think I should leave him behind like this, ma’am. He just lost his brother, he’s not… feeling too well.” 

“Oh, but our treatments do wonders for both body  _ and  _ mind, he’ll be better in no time, now why don’t you go with Hylla and get that dreadful hair fixed?” 

Percy turned to glare at Circe; there was an unconscious urge in his mind to please her, to do whatever she said, but he knew it was no more real than the rage Ares inspired in others. 

The multivitamins were still in his pocket. They might have been useful somewhere else down the line, but all he could think about at the moment was getting out of there, and with all of the magic tricks up Circe’s sleeves they’d need a distraction. And he knew the perfect one. He twisted the lid off the bottle, still looking the sorceress dead in the eye, and dumped them into the cage. 

Circe didn’t seem to immediately realize what he’d done, and went back to trying to convince Annabeth to join her and stay at the spa forever. Then the rough-looking guinea pigs started to grow inside their cage, and suddenly  _ bang!  _ The cage exploded as several disoriented men now stood in its place, shaking wood shavings out of their hair.

One of the men stood up - a huge guy with a long tangled pitch-black beard and teeth the same color. He wore mismatched clothes of wool and leather, knee-length boots, and a floppy felt hat. The other men were dressed more simply - in breeches and stained white shirts. All of them were barefoot.

“Argggh!” bellowed the big man. “What’s the witch done t’me!” 

“No!” Circe screeched. 

Annabeth gasped. “I recognize you! Edward Teach, son of Ares?” 

“Aye, lass,” the big man growled. “Though most call me Blackbeard! And there’s the sorceress what captured us, lads. Run her through, and then I mean to find me a big bowl of celery! Arggggh!” 

Circe screamed. She and her attendants ran from the room, chased by the pirates. Annabeth turned to look at him, and suddenly Percy couldn’t help but feel he’d done something wrong. He was about to ask what was wrong when she tackled him with a hug, then pulled away just as quickly. 

“I’m glad you’re okay. You are, right? She didn’t put you under any spells?” 

“Nope. That was just… me. Sorry.”

“Come on, Seaweed Brain,” she said with a shake of her head. “We have to get away while Circe’s distracted.”

They ran down the hillside through the terraces, past screaming spa workers and pirates ransacking the resort. Blackbeard’s men broke the tiki torches for the luau, threw herbal wraps into the swimming pool, and kicked over tables of sauna towels. He almost felt bad letting the unruly pirates out, but figured that they deserved something more entertaining than the exercise wheel after being cooped up in a cage for three centuries. 

“Which ship?” Annabeth said as they reached the docks. 

He looked up and down the dock, searching for one ship in particular. Yachts had never been his specialty - too big. And there was no way they were hopping back on the rowboat. 

“There,” he pointed. 

Annabeth blinked. “But-” 

“I can sail it.” 

“How?” 

Percy wasn’t exactly sure how to explain in a reasonable amount of time other than “Thank my dad. C’mon,” as he pulled her toward the three-mast ship.

Painted on its prow was a name he’d forgotten but remembered easily at the sight of her: Queen Anne’s Revenge. 

“Argggh!” Blackbeard yelled somewhere behind them. “Those scalawags are a-boarding me vessel! Get ’em, lads!” 

“We’ll never get going in time!” Annabeth yelled as they climbed aboard.

Thankfully, the ship was in great condition for a three hundred-year old vessel, and wouldn’t cause any problems for him. 

As the pirates came running down the stairs, waving tiki torches and sticks of celery, Percyclosed his eyes and concentrated on the waves lapping against the hull, the ocean currents, the winds all around him, as he yelled: “Mizzenmast!”

Annabeth looked at him like he was nuts, but in the next second, the air was filled with whistling sounds of ropes being snapped taut, canvases unfurling, and wooden pulleys creaking. Annabeth ducked as a cable flew over her head and wrapped itself around the bowsprit. 

“Percy, how...” 

“I told you, thank Poesidon and just be glad that ‘ocean powers’ extend to boats as well.”

He willed the sails to rise as easily as flexing an arm, the rudder to turn like nothing more than blinking. The Queen Anne’s Revenge lurched away from the dock, and by the time the pirates arrived at the water’s edge, they were already underway, sailing into the Sea of Monsters.

The Queen Anne’s Revenge responded to his every command. They were plowing through the waves at about ten knots, which was pretty darn fast for a sailing ship. The wind in his hair and occasional seaspray made Percy feel at home, but now that they were out of danger, something felt missing. Tyson was still gone, obviously, but he knew that wasn’t it; there was just something fundamentally  _ wrong  _ with this situation. With him. 

They sailed through the night. Annabeth tried to help keep lookout, but sailing didn’t agree with her; after a few hours rocking back and forth, her face turned the color of guacamole and she went below to lie in a hammock. He watched the horizon. More than once there were monsters, but nothing bothered the ship. The feeling of wrongness persisted as he roughly twisted the braided-leather bracelet on his right arm, taking little comfort in the rough and usually pleasing texture. 

Sometime after midnight, Annabeth came up on deck. They were just passing a smoking volcano island where the sea bubbled and steamed around the shore. 

“One of the forges of Hephaestus,” Annabeth said. “Where he makes his metal monsters.” 

“Like the bronze bulls.” 

She nodded. “Go around. Far around.”

He steered clear of the island, and soon it was just a red patch of haze behind them. Idly, Percy thought about the story Annabeth had told him on this night, sixteen years ago for him but nonexistent for her. It felt really weird every time he thought about his past/future, and how so many of those memories would eventually be no longer relevant. What happens when he eventually reaches adulthood again, reaches the day he died? 

What if this all happens again? What if, as soon as he gets back to that day, (when was it, again? Some time in April, 2027…) he dies again and restarts this whole cycle? Percy doesn’t like that idea. He doesn’t like not knowing anything about time-traveling, or how he did it, or what that voice was in the void between life and death.

Something cold and unnatural washed over him - like how people always describe what a ghost walking through you would feel like. Suddenly he thought that maybe this wasn’t the best train of thought to follow in the middle of such a dark night. 

“Go below,” Annabeth said at last. “You need some rest.” 

He nodded. His eyes were growing heavy and steering the Queen Anne's Revenge all night was weighing on him. It took just as long as it always did for Percy to actually fall asleep in one of the hammocks below deck, however. 

For a few hours he simply laid with his eyes closed, tossing and turning. (At least, as much as a hammock allowed for that sort of thing.) He missed Grover and Tyson. Part of him wondered if maybe, he’d just been sent a few years back, if he could have changed the prophecies entirely. Stop Luke from growing so bitter, stop Annabeth from running away so young and being forced to rely on unreliable people. Nothing he could do now but work with what he was given, though. 

That was, assuming this wasn’t something he’d dreamed up in a coma. Maybe he was still alive, in some stuffy hospital with wise girl waiting by his bedside, begging him to wake up. Probably not, though - the scar on his chest could attest to some pretty intense pain that even  _ he  _ couldn’t make up. Sure, the son of Poesidon’s been impaled his fair share of times, (that poor first-year camper, she hadn’t meant it, he knew, and really he should’ve known better than to stand anywhere within a hundred feet of the junior javelin-throwing classes,) but even his worst nightmares never made him relieve that kind of physical abuse. Just the emotional and mental trauma stockpiled over twenty-seven years of life. Closing in on twenty nine, if he counted last year’s birthday, which was only about a month setback if he was doing the math right. Wow, by the end of this summer he’ll be almost thirty. He’s getting old. 

And to think, as a kid he never thought he’d live past sixteen. 

He didn’t dream about Grover, when he finally fell asleep. Instead he was back in Luke’s stateroom aboard the Princess Andromeda. The curtains were open, and it was nighttime outside; the air swirled with shadows and voices whispered all around - spirits of the dead. 

_ Beware,  _ they whispered.  _ Traps. Trickery. _

Kronos’s golden sarcophagus glowed faintly - the only source of light in the room. A cold laugh echoed, seemingly miles away, below the ship.

_ You don’t have the courage, young one. You can’t stop me. _

Unconsciously, Percy uncapped Anaklusmos.

Ghosts whirled around him like a tornado. _ Beware!  _

His heart pounded and his feet wouldn’t move - but he _ had  _ to defeat Kronos. He had to end the war before things got worse.

Then a girl spoke, as if she were standing right behind him: “Well, Seaweed Brain?” 

He turned to look, but the girl he saw wasn’t Annabeth. She wore punk-style clothes with silver chains on her wrists, had spiky black hair, dark eyeliner around her stormy blue eyes, and a spray of freckles across her nose. Thalia Grace.

“Well?” she asked. “Are we going to stop him or not?” He couldn’t answer her. Thalia rolled her eyes. “Fine. Leave it to me and Aegis.” 

She tapped her wrist and her silver chains transformed - flattening and expanding into a huge shield. It was silver and bronze, with the monstrous face of Medusa protruding from the center. It looked like a death mask, as if the gorgon’s real head had been pressed into the metal. She drew her sword and advanced on the sarcophagus. The shadowy ghosts parted for her, scattering before the terrible aura of her shield. 

“No,” Percy tried to warn her. But she didn’t listen. She marched straight up to the sarcophagus and pushed aside the golden lid. For a moment she stood there, gazing down at whatever was in the box. The coffin began to glow. 

“No.” Thalia’s voice trembled. “It can’t be.” 

From the depths of the ocean, Kronos laughed so loudly the whole ship trembled. 

“No!” She screamed as the sarcophagus engulfed her in a blast of a golden light. 

“Ah!” He sat bolt upright in his hammock, someone’s hands on his shoulders. Without thinking, he elbowed whoever it was and fell out of his hammock trying to get away. 

“Percy, you were having a nightmare! You need to calm down!”

“Wh- what?” came his dazed reply, as he searched for the source of the voice he’d just heard.

It was Annabeth, looking very not happy about being elbowed, (in the face, if the hand hovering over her nose was any clue,) but still looked at him with a sort of gentleness he hadn’t seen in a long time. She was probably just trying not to be angry because it was an accident. 

“You were just dreaming. We have bigger problems to deal with right now.”

“Like what?”

“Land,” she said grimly. “We’re approaching the island of the Sirens.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	10. Saytr & mean girl rescuers at your service

He could barely make out the island ahead of them - just a dark spot in the mist. But he knew that didn’t make the danger any less real. 

“I want you to do me a favor,” Annabeth said. “The Sirens… we’ll be in range of their singing soon.”

“No problem,” Percy said. “We can just stop up our ears, or I could sail us around their island?”

“I want to hear them.” He blinked. Right, he remembered, now - tying Annabeth to the mast only for her to break free and almost drowning.

“Why?” 

“They say the Sirens sing the truth about what you desire. They tell you things about yourself you didn’t even realize. That’s what’s so enchanting. If you survive... you become wiser. I want to hear them. How often will I get that chance?”

“Wise girl, you don’t need to risk your life to know what you want - you know that right? I’ve known you for- uhm,” don’t say ‘since we were twelve’ because that sounds a lot less endearing when you’re barely thirteen, “Well, only a year, but still. I know you’re incredibly smart and determined, you’ll find meaning in whatever you decide to do with your life. No monster can tell you what to do.”

Annabeth did at least seem to appreciate what he said, but… 

“Thanks, seaweed brain, but like you said: I’m determined. And I am  _ determined  _ to do this. So, please?” 

He sighed, and nodded. 

She explained her plan. Reluctantly, Percy helped her get ready. As soon as the rocky coastline of the island came into view, he ordered one of the ropes to wrap around Annabeth’s waist, tying her to the foremast. He also made sure to confiscate her celestial bronze knife, this time. 

“Don’t untie me,” she said, “no matter what happens or how much I plead. I’ll want to go straight over the edge and drown myself.” 

“Are you trying to tempt me?” 

“Ha-ha.” 

He promised to keep her secure, then took two large wads of candle wax from some tubs below deck, kneaded them into ear plugs, and stuffed his ears. 

Annabeth nodded sarcastically, letting him know the earplugs were a real fashion statement. He made a face at her and turned to the pilot’s wheel. The silence was almost eerie, but at least familiar. All Percy knew was the cool night air and the ringing of blood in his ears. 

As they approached the island, jagged rocks loomed out of the fog, which he willed the Queen Anne’s Revenge to skirt around. He glanced back. 

At first, Annabeth seemed totally normal. Then she got a puzzled look on her face. Her eyes widened. She strained against the ropes. She called his name - Percy could tell just from reading her lips. Her expression was clear: She  _ had _ to get out. This was life or death. He had to let her out of the ropes right now. She seemed so miserable it was hard to look at her - so he turned away, focusing on keeping the Queen Anne’s Revenge from shredding itself on the rocks as they sailed past the island.

He gently urged the Queen Anne’s Revenge to go faster. He still couldn’t see much of the island - just mist and rocks - but floating in the water were pieces of wood and fiberglass, the wreckage of old ships, even some flotation cushions from airplanes. 

Percy could feel the Sirens’ voices vibrating in the timbers of the ship, pulsing along with the roar of blood in his ears, and for just a moment he was tempted to take out his ear plugs and listen. Then he shook his head, and reminded himself: he already knows what he wants, and how to get it. He wants his mom to be happy, to find Paul and eventually, have Estelle again. (Jeez, that’s something he’s going to have to think about more later, how does he get them to fall in love again? Is he playing god here?) He wants to save Grover so that his friend can live to find Pan. He wants to Marry Annabeth and live the rest of his life with her, to re-meet all of their friends together and watch her achieve her goals. 

Behind him, Annabeth was pleading to be untied. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she strained against the ropes, like they were holding her back from everything she cared about. _ How could you be so cruel? _ She seemed to be asking.  _ I thought you were my friend. _ He turned and glared at the misty island, trying hard not to look at Annabeth. 

The son of Poesidon managed it for about five minutes, before he got caught in a loop of focusing on every groove and chip of wood on the ship, before frantically turning around to make sure Annabeth hadn’t somehow escaped, then forcing himself to look anywhere else. Eventually he couldn’t stand it and jumped ship. Literally. 

Commanding the ship to keep following it’s course past the sirens, Percy stepped away from the wheel and hopped over the rails and into the water. He could still keep an eye on things from down below, and he’d sense if any wise girls made it into the water… probably. Of course he’d be keeping an eye out, too, he just needed a little break, and the comfort of his father’s presence. 

The sea life all kept a bit of a distance from the sirens and their island, but no more than the Queen Anne’s Revenge, and he made some idle conversation with a pod of dolphins as they passed. It was mostly about if he’d seen a particular school of tuna, or any tuna really - but it distracted him from more upsetting thoughts all the same. 

For a little while, things felt peaceful as he followed the ship from underneath, occasionally diving towards the sand when something shiny caught his eye; nameplates, tin cans, even a broken chain that looked like it had once been a necklace. It was real silver as fast as he could tell, so he shoved it in his pants pocket as he went along. Amongst some of the wreckage from ships that had sunk themselves chasing the sirens, there were all sorts of treasures. Weapons, (mostly rusted with time,) silverware, jewelry that had all sorts of precious gems embedded in them - but it was wrong to desecrate graves like that. Random junk from the seafloor was fine, but taking things from where actual dead bodies were laying? That was just begging for bad luck. 

When he finally surfaced again, deeming that they were far enough that the siren’s effects would be wearing off by now, Percy was still holding it. The blade was entirely gone though, as if it had never been there in the first place. He paid it no mind, going to check on Annabeth, who was still tied to the foremast. 

She seemed dazed, and slumped to the floor after being untied. After a few quiet moments, she spoke in a whisper: “I didn’t realize.” 

“What?” 

Her eyes were the same color as the mist over the Sirens’ island. “How powerful the temptation would be.” 

“Did you find out what you wanted?” He asked at last. That was probably a good thing to say, right? 

“My fatal flaw. That’s what the Sirens showed me. My fatal flaw is hubris.”

Percy recalled the image of Annabeth’s father sitting on a picnic blanket with Athena and Luke. They were sitting in a completely different version of Manhattan, rebuilt better and more beautiful by Annabeth herself. 

She looked down, seeming ashamed. “Don’t you ever feel like, what if the world really  _ is _ messed up? What if we could do it all over again from scratch? No more war. Nobody homeless. No more summer reading homework.” 

“Sure.” 

“I mean, the West represents a lot of the best things mankind ever did - that’s why the fire is still burning. That’s why Olympus is still around. But sometimes you just see the bad stuff, you know? And you start thinking the way Luke does: ‘If I could tear this all down, I would do it better.’ Don’t you ever feel that way? Like you could do a better job if you ran the world?” 

“...Not really. I think the world would be a disaster if I got to run it.”

“Then you’re lucky. Hubris isn’t your fatal flaw.”

_ Of course it isn't,  _ he wanted to say.  _ I’ve lacked confidence in myself since day one.  _ But that didn’t feel like comforting words. 

“Do you at least feel better knowing?”

Annabeth gazed into the distance, thoughtful. “I’m not sure. But we _ have  _ to save the camp. If we don’t stop Luke...”

He thought about his dream, with Thalia and Kronos. Something felt off. Why was he dreaming of her in the first place, was she urging him to save her? Or was it just a confusing manifestation of a girl he isn’t supposed to know inorder to mess with him? 

Suddenly Annabeth’s eyes widened. “Percy.” 

He turned. Up ahead was another blotch of land - a saddle-shaped island with forested hills and white beaches and green meadows - disarmingly beautiful for the evil that it held. His nautical senses confirmed it, not that he needed any confirmation. 30 degrees, 31 minutes north, 75 degrees, 12 minutes west. They’d just reached the home of the Cyclops. 

The place looked like a Caribbean postcard. It had green fields and tropical fruit trees and white beaches. As they sailed toward the shore, Annabeth breathed in the sweet air. “The Fleece,” she said. 

Hw nodded - they couldn’t see the Fleece yet, but it was easy to feel its power. 

“If we take it away, you think all those plants will die?” 

Annabeth shook her head. “It’ll fade. Go back to what it would be normally, whatever that is.” 

In the meadow at the base of the ravine, several dozen sheep were milling around. They looked peaceful enough for the moment, but they were also the size of hippos, and extremely carnivorous if anything even resembling meat came close. Just past them was a path that led up into the hills; at the top of the path, near the edge of the canyon, was the massive oak tree he’d seen in his dreams. Something gold glittered in its branches. 

“This is too easy,” Percy commented, knowing full well it wouldn't be easy. “We could just hike up there and take it?” 

Annabeth’s eyes narrowed. “There’s supposed to be a guardian. A dragon or...” 

That’s when a deer emerged from the bushes. It trotted into the meadow, probably looking for grass to eat, when the sheep all bleated at once and rushed the animal. It happened so fast that the deer stumbled and was lost in a sea of wool and trampling hooves. Grass and tufts of fur flew into the air. A second later the sheep all moved away, back to their regular peaceful wanderings. Where the deer had been was a pile of clean white bones. 

“They’re like piranhas,” she said. 

“Piranhas with wool,” He agreed. “How-” 

“Percy!” Annabeth gasped, grabbing his arm. “Look.” 

She pointed down the beach, to just below the sheep meadow, where a small boat had been run aground. . . the other lifeboat from the CSS Birmingham. 

They decided there was no way they could get past the man-eating sheep. Annabeth wanted to sneak up the path invisibly and grab the Fleece, but he convinced her it was too risky. If something went wrong, like they smelled her or something (some _ one)  _ else showed up, Percy be too far away to help. 

Besides, their first job was to find Grover. And hopefully, whoever had come ashore in that boat. He knew it wasn’t Tyson, that his brother was still out there but they wouldn’t be reuniting just yet, but that’s what she must’ve thought from the sad look in her eyes as she agreed.

They moored the Queen Anne’s Revenge on the back side of the island where the cliffs rose straight up a good two hundred feet; he figured the ship was less likely to be seen there, if nothing else. The cliffs looked barely climbable, but it  _ was  _ free of sheep. They rowed a lifeboat to the edge of the rocks and made their way up, very slowly. 

Annabeth went first because she was a better climber, and because Percy wanted to see if she fell to make sure the water below could catch her in time. They only came close to grievous bodily harm or death a few times, which Percy figured was pretty good. Once, he lost his grip and was dangling by one hand from a ledge fifty feet above the rocky surf. Not that he was too worried, but the hammering feeling in his chest died down once he found another handhold and kept climbing.

A minute later Annabeth hit a slippery patch of moss and her foot slipped. Fortunately, she found something else to put it against. Unfortunately, that something was his face. 

“Sorry,” she murmured. 

“S’okay,” he grunted, though ‘sneaker face print’ isn’t exactly in-style this season. 

Finally, when his fingers felt like molten lead and he felt thouroughly ready to give up on live entirely, they hauled themselves up and over he edge. 

“Ugh,” he said. 

“Ouch,” moaned Annabeth. 

“Garrr!” bellowed another voice. 

If he wasn’t already commited to saving his friend and Camp Half-Blood, (and wasn’t still trying to breathe properly,) Percy would have dived right off the cliff and gone to go spend some time with the dolphins. 

Annabeth clamped her hand over his mouth and pointed. The ledge they were sitting on was very narrow: it dropped off on the opposite side, and that’s where the voice was coming from - right below them. 

“You’re a feisty one!” Polyphemus bellowed. 

“Challenge me!” Clarisse’s shouted. “Give me back my sword and I’ll fight you!” 

The monster roared with laughter. He and Annabeth crept to the edge - the two of them were right above the entrance of the Cyclops’s cave. Below stood Polyphemus and Grover, still in his wedding dress. Clarisse was tied up, hanging upside down over a pot of boiling water. So far all seemed normal. 

“Hmm,” Polyphemus pondered. “Eat loudmouth girl now or wait for wedding feast? What does my bride think?”

He turned to Grover, who backed up and almost tripped over his completed bridal train. “Oh, um, I’m not hungry right now, dear. Perhaps-” 

“Did you say  _ bride? _ ” Clarisse demanded. “Who -  _ Grover? _ ” 

Next to him Annabeth muttered, “Shut up. She has to shut up.” 

Polyphemus glowered. “What ‘Grover’?” 

“The satyr!” Clarisse yelled. 

“Oh!” Grover yelped. “The poor thing’s brain is boiling from that hot water. Pull her down, dear!” 

Polyphemus’s eyelids narrowed over his baleful milky eye, as if he were trying to see Clarisse more clearly. Percy knew he had to do something, but what could he do from up here? Shout and dance around so the murderous cyclops would focus on him, and ruin any chance at a surprise attack they had? Well, no, but the idea he  _ did _ have was almost as bad.

The cliffside didn’t have a  _ lot  _ of rocks, but he only needed one decent-sized one. Which, thankfully, was not hard to find. Hopefully he could aim this right. 

Annabeth looked at him as if to ask, ‘what the hell do you think you’re doing, seaweed brain?’ but he didn’t have the courage to answer that sort of question. He just stood up carefully, took aim, and threw...

Bullseye. 

Or, in this case, cyclops eye. With a fist-sozed rock in it. 

Truly, it was such a shame that Percy wasn’t going to live to see the wonderful wedding, with Polyphemus dressed in his wonderful wedding outfit - a crude kilt and shoulder-wrap, stitched together from baby-blue tuxedos, as if the he’d skinned an entire wedding party. And Grover looked so nice in that wedding dress, too. 

Polyphemus screamed. Loudly. Like, ear-splittingly loud, probably with lots of saliva falling upon those close by, his big yellow teeth on full display. Then he started hitting things, like the rock face and ground and anything in the way of his fists as he released easily a thousand times the rage of someone who’d just stubbed their toe.

The good news? Percy had time to make his way down to Grover and the still-roasting Clarisse and (pulling Annabeth by the arm as he went,) and got them all across the bridge and half-way down the path before the next obstacle appeared. Namely, the man-eating sheep blocking their route to the water. 

Less unfortunately, Percy noted with some delight, there was a familiar figure standing amongst the sheep, gently pushing them away like dogs begging for treats. Considering he looked and smelled a bit like their usual care-taker and food-giver, this wasn’t hard to believe. Standing in the middle of the meadow, completely unharmed in the midst of a flock of killer sheep, was his brother. Tyson was back. 

Tyson gave them the short version: Rainbow the hippocampus - who’d been following them ever since the Long Island Sound, waiting for Tyson to play with him - had found Tyson sinking beneath the wreckage of the CSS Birmingham and pulled him to safety. He and Tyson had been searching the Sea of Monsters ever since, trying to find his friends, until Tyson caught the scent of sheep and found this island. 

Now the cyclops was stuck trying to keep the increasingly more urgent sheep off of him with shouts of “No, down sheepies!”, and “Tyson needs to go now!”

Considering there was still a good bit of distance between them and the Fleece, Percy called to his brother: “Tyson, the Fleece. Can you get it for me?” 

“Which one?” Tyson said, looking around at the hundreds of sheep. 

“In the tree,” he said. “The gold one!” 

“Oh. Pretty. Yes.” Tyson lumbered over, careful not to step on the sheep. If any of them had tried to approach the Fleece, they would’ve been eaten alive, but Tyson smelled like Polyphemus, and the flock didn’t bother him at all. They just cuddled up to him and bleated affectionately, as though they expected to get sheep treats from the big wicker basket. 

Tyson reached up and lifted the Fleece off its branch. Immediately the leaves on the oak tree turned yellow. Tyson started wading back toward him, but the sheep were following right behind, butting their heads against him and demanding attention - and some were starting to notice the tasty smell of humans and turning their heads.

Thankfully his brother seemed to realize this, and started leading the sheep in the other direction, and threw the Fleece to his brother. It was heavy. Way heavier than any Fleece had the right to be, magic or not, and it almost bowled him over; sixty or seventy pounds of precious gold wool.

Clarisse plucked it off him with an ease that didn’t seem fair, and tossed it over her shoulder. “I’ll get this, Prissy.” 

“Yeah yeah…” he dusted himself off. 

It seemed like Tyson was making progress, at least - the sheep were now mostly just milling about, content to leave him be since he lacked food or enough hands to pet them all at once. 

The five of them were just wading past the entrance to the ravine, Percy calling the Queen Ann’s Revenge to raise anchor and meet them as close to the island as possible, when they heard a tremendous roar from behind. There stood Polyphemus, tears still streaming from his red and irritated eye, but still very much alive as he splashed toward them with a boulder in each hand.

Their ship was still a ways off, coming around the corner. It’d be there any minute, but they didn’t have a whole lot of minutes to spare. 

“Swim for it!” Grover said.

He and Clarisse plunged into the surf, trying to meet the Queen Anne’s Revenge half-way. Annabeth stood behind him with her knife drawn, looking ready to make sure the Fleece got away safely no matter what. 

But the monster’s attention wasn’t on the Fleece.

“You, young Cyclops!” Polyphemus roared. “Traitor to your kind!”

Tyson froze.

“Come on, Tyson,” Percy called. “Don’t listen to him, we have to go!”

He pulled Tyson’s arm, but he might as well have been pulling a mountain. His brother turned and faced the older Cyclops. “I am not a traitor.”

“You serve mortals!” Polyphemus shouted. “Thieving humans!”

Polyphemus threw his first boulder. Tyson swatted it aside with his fist.

“Not a traitor,” Tyson said. “And you are not my kind.”

“Death or victory!” Polyphemus charged into the surf, but his only eye was still out of commission, and immediately stumbled and fell on his face. That would’ve been funny, except he started to get up again, spitting salt water and growling. (Percy vaguely wondered how he even threw that boulder semi-accurately. Maybe it was just instinct?) 

“Percy, Annabeth!” Clarisse yelled. “Come on!” 

They were almost to the ship with the Fleece. If they could just keep the monster distracted a little longer…

“Go,” Tyson said. “I will hold Big Ugly.” 

“No,” He and Annabeth said at once. 

Percy was a little surprised, but shared a look with her as they both nodded - they were doing this together, or not at all. 

“Together,” Tyson acquiesced. 

He drew Riptide. Polyphemus advanced carefully, stepping carefully and stumbling every few stems. But there was nothing wrong with his throwing arm. He chucked his second boulder. He dove to one side, but probably still would’ve been crushed if Tyson’s fist hadn’t blasted the rock to rubble. Percy willed the sea to rise, into a twenty-foot wave that surged forward and up, lifting him on its crest. He rode toward the Cyclops and sliced him across the bridge of his big nose, using the back of his head as a springboard to land easier as the water blasted past across the beach. 

“Destroy you!” Polyphemus spluttered. “Fleece stealer!” 

“You stole the Fleece!” the half-blood yelled, a little indignantly. “You’ve been using it to lure satyrs to their deaths!” 

“So? Satyrs good eating!” 

“The Fleece should be used to heal! It belongs to the children of the gods!” 

“I am a child of the gods!” Polyphemus swiped at him, but Percy sidestepped. “Father Poseidon, curse this thief!” 

He was blinking hard now, and suddenly he realized the monster was targeting by the sound of his voice. 

“Poseidon won’t curse me, I’m his son, too. He won’t play favorites, trust me.” Polyphemus continued to grab at thin air. 

Annabeth must have also realized much sooner how the cyclops was aiming for them, and quietly made her way around Polyphemus until she was at his back, then stuck him in the back of his knee with her knife. Kind of a dirty move, but since when have the monsters ever fought a clean fight?

Their opponent yelled and swung blindly behind him, knocking Annabeth back, hard. She rolled across the sand, and took a few moments to get back up, but seemed alive enough for now. Blood ran down the side of her face, and not in the badass-looking way. 

Polyphemus roared. He ripped an olive tree out of the side of the cliff and smashed it where Percy had been standing a moment before. “Humans not the same! Nasty, tricky, lying!” 

He, Tyson and Ployphemus continued to dance around each other for a little while, the latter smashing aimlessly with his olive tree. 

“Young one!” the older Cyclops called, sounding desperate. “Where are you? Help me!”

Tyson stopped. 

“You weren’t raised right!” Polyphemus wailed, shaking his olive tree club. “Poor orphaned brother! Help me!” 

No one moved. No sound but the ocean and and his own heartbeat ringing in his ears. Then Tyson stepped forward, raising his hands defensively. “Don’t fight, Cyclops brother. Put down the-” 

Polyphemus spun toward his voice. 

The tree struck him with such force it would’ve flattened Percy easily. Tyson flew backward, plowing a trench in the sand. Polyphemus charged after him, Percy had had more than enough of this fight already. 

With a shout, he leapt with the sea giving him another boost, and dragged Riptide across the cyclops’s back, making one large gash, which must’ve hurt a lot by the monster’s screams. But he wasn’t done yet - his blade found its way through or across every joint he could reach in the few brief seconds before Polyphemus swung around and sent him flying with the olive tree. 

Honestly, it did hurt, but not for very long. Either because of the shock, or because he was knocked into the ocean and immediately sunk ten or twelve feet below the surface. He didn’t care which, considering the fact that his ribs were probably all smashed to hell and pierced organs were only  _ one _ of his biggest concerns. 

Nearby, he felt large disruptions in the water. Tyson and Annabeth. Moments later, he felt a large arm wrapping around his waist, and pulling him further out to sea. Or rather, towards the ship. Tyson lifted him much gentler than what was probably necessary considering their need to escape like, yesterday, but Percy appreciated the effort. 

There were voices above him, speaking to each other - or maybe him, he couldn’t make out the words. With his eyes closed and his ears ringing, all he could rely on was what he felt - and what he  _ felt  _ was the huge, rocking waves rocking them back and forth, likely caused by huge boulders splashing into the water next to them. He’s pretty sure nothing had hit the ship yet, at least, but they needed to go before Polyphemus’s aim got any better. 

Strangely enough, that’s exactly what happened. The ship turned around and left, but without any direction from Percy. Weird…


	11. And they all lived happily ev- oh wait

“Percy, wake up.” Salt water splashed his face, and Annabeth was shaking his shoulder. 

In the distance, the sun was setting behind a city skyline. I could see a beachside highway lined with palm trees, storefronts glowing with red and blue neon, a harbor filled with sailboats and cruise ships. 

“We’re in Miami, I think,” Annabeth said. “But the hippocampi are acting funny.” 

_ What?  _ Was his first though.  _ The hippocampi are…? _

Percy groaned, sitting up and immediately regretting it. His insides felt like they’d been thoroughly blended, and a quick peek under his shirt showed a healing bruise the size of a bowling ball on his chest. 

Right, he got hit with an olive tree. For some reason he felt like he should be in even more pain, but then he noticed the Fleece laying across his lap. Well, however long it’d been there, it probably saved his life, which was good. Now he just had to figure out what the hell was going on with… everything else. 

“Hippocampi?”

Annabeth gave him the long and short of it: with him incapacitated, Tyson had managed to get the ship going and away from the island, but he didn’t know where they were supposed to be going. A few miles out to sea, the hippocamp Rainbow and his friends had showed up to guide them (closeish to) home, but were now acting weird. Tyson was upset because their fishy friends wouldn’t come with them back to camp. 

Sure enough, just over the edge of the ship’s rails, he could see the hippocampi whinnying and swimming in circles, sniffing the water. They didn’t look happy. One of them sneezed.

“This is as far as they’ll go,” he said. “Too many humans. Too much pollution. Let’s just say goodbye here and land the ship.”

Once the hippocampi’s white manes disappeared into the sea, Percy gently guided the Queen Anne’s Revenge to shore. The waves pushed them forward, and in no time they were back in the mortal world. 

The five of them wandered along the cruise line docks, pushing through crowds of people arriving for vacations. Porters bustled around with carts of luggage. Taxi drivers yelled at each other in Spanish and tried to cut in line for customers. If anybody noticed them - five kids, one the size of a pro heavy-lifter, looking like they’d just had a fight with a monster - they didn’t let on. 

Now that they were back among mortals, Tyson’s single eye had blurred from the Mist, though Percy was better at looking past it than he used to be. Grover had put on his cap and sneakers. Even the Fleece had transformed from a sheepskin to a red-and-gold high school letter jacket with a large, glittery Omega on the pocket. 

Annabeth ran to the nearest newspaper box and checked the date on the Miami Herald. She cursed. “June eighteenth! We’ve been away from camp ten days!” 

“That’s impossible!” Clarisse said. 

“Time just works differently in monstrous places,” Percy said, though he was distinctly not happy about it. 

“Thalia’s tree must be almost dead,” Grover wailed. “We have to get the Fleece back _ tonight. _ ” 

Clarisse slumped down on the pavement. “How are we supposed to do that?” Her voice trembled. “We’re hundreds of miles away. No money. No ride. This is just like the Oracle said. It’s your fault, Jackson! If you hadn’t interfered-” 

“Percy’s fault?!” Annabeth exploded. “Clarisse, how can you say that? You are the biggest-”

“Stop it!” he said. This was getting ridiculous - they were all just tired and upset. 

Clarisse put her head in her hands. Annabeth stomped her foot in frustration. 

Percy thought back to their brief time on the  _ CSS Birmingham _ ; Ares yelling at Clarisse, warning her that she’d better not fail. Ares couldn’t care less about the camp, but if Clarisse made him look bad.. 

“Clarisse,” Percy sighed, trying to put his brain together from the crumbling pieces it was in at the moment, “what did the Oracle tell you exactly?” 

She looked up. At first, he thought she was going to tell him off, but instead she took a deep breath and recited her prophecy: 

“ _ You shall sail the iron ship with ghosts of johnny rebs,  _

_ You shall find what you seek and take it from its den,  _

_ But despair for your life in the hands of liar aomg your men,  _

_ And fail without friends, to fly home alone with burden. _ ” 

“Ouch,” Grover mumbled. 

That sounded… different than what he remembered. Percy really, really didn’t like that part about ‘a mliar among your men,’ because gods, if the prophecies were starting to catch on to him, that was - well. He didn’t know if it was bad news, exactly, but it couldn’t be  _ good.  _ There was no way people wouldn’t eventually question that wording, especially once they were all well-rested and home safe. 

For the moment, though, he had a job to do. 

“I think I get it, though, guys. Does anyone have any cash on them?”

Annabeth and Grover shook their heads morosely. Clarisse pulled a wet Confederate dollar from her pocket and sighed. 

“Cash?” Tyson asked hesitantly. “Like . . . green paper?” 

Percy Looked at him. “Yeah.” 

“Like the kind in duffel bags?” 

“Yeah, but we lost those bags days ag-” he stuttered to a halt as Tyson rummaged in his saddle pack and pulled out the Ziploc bag full of cash that Hermes had included in our supplies. 

“Thought it was a feed bag for Rainbow,” he said. “Found it floating in sea, but only paper inside. Sorry.” He handed over the cash. Fives and tens, at least three hundred dollars. Percy ran to the curb and grabbed a taxi that was just letting out a family of cruise passengers. 

“Clarisse,” he yelled. “Come on. You’re going to the airport.” He tucked the cash into the letterman slung over Clarisses’ shoulder. 

“You’d let me-” she started, but they didn’t really have the time for that.

“It’s your quest,” he interrupted. “We only have enough money for one flight. Besides, I can’t travel by air, Zeus would shoot me down without a second thought. That’s what the prophecy meant: you’d fail without friends, meaning you’d need our help, but you’d have to fly home alone with the Fleece - a burden cause every monster in a hundred miles will want to steal it.” 

He could see her mind working - suspicious at first, wondering what kind of trick was being pulled, then finally deciding he was sincere. 

She jumped in the cab. “You can count on me. I won’t fail.” 

“Not failing would be good.” 

The cab peeled out in a cloud of exhaust. The Fleece was on its way. 

Percy,” Annabeth said, “that was so-” 

“Generous?” Grover offered.

“Insane,” Annabeth corrected. “You’re betting the lives of everybody at camp that Clarisse will get the Fleece safely back by tonight?” 

“Why wouldn’t she be able to?” He asked. “Besides, it’s her quest. Everyone deserves a chance, wise girl.” 

“Percy is nice,” Tyson said. 

“Percy is  _ too  _ nice,” Annabeth grumbled, but he could see it in her eyes that she was a little, just a teensy bit impressed. He’d surprised her, at least, and that wasn’t easy to do. 

“Come on,” Percy said to his friend. “Let’s find another way home.” 

That’s when he turned and found a sword’s point at his throat. One of the top ten ways to piss him off, but he was too tired to do much but play along for the moment. He’d remembered Luke coming back for them, but hadn’t been sure exactly when that was. 

“Hey, cuz,” said Luke. “Welcome back to the States.” 

His bear-man thugs appeared on either side of them. One grabbed Annabeth and Grover by their t-shirt collars. The other tried to grab Tyson, but Tyson knocked him into a pile of luggage and roared at Luke. 

“Percy,” Luke said calmly, “tell your giant to back down or I’ll have Oreius bash your friends’ heads together.” Oreius grinned and raised Annabeth and Grover off the ground, kicking and screaming. 

“What do you want, Luke?” Percy asked, deadpan. 

He smiled, the scar rippling on the side of his face. He gestured toward the end of the dock, and he noticed what should’ve been entirely obvious. The biggest boat in port was the _ Princess Andromeda _ . 

“Why, Percy,” Luke said, entirely too sweetly for the context, “I want to extend my hospitality, of course.” 

The bear twins herded them aboard the  _ Princess Andromeda _ . They threw them down on the aft deck in front of a swimming pool with sparkling fountains that sprayed into the air. A dozen of Luke’s assorted goons - snake people, Laistrygonians, demigods in battle armor - had gathered to watch them get some ‘hospitality.’ 

“And so, the Fleece,” Luke mused. “Where is it?” He looked them over, prodding Percy’s shirt with the tip of his sword, poking Grover’s jeans. 

“Hey!” Grover yelled. “That’s real goat fur under there!” 

“Sorry, old friend.,” he smiled. “Just give me the Fleece and I’ll leave you to return to your, ah, little nature quest.” 

“Blaa-ha-ha!” Grover protested. “Some old friend!” 

“Maybe you didn’t hear me.” Luke’s voice was dangerously calm. “Where-is-the-Fleece?” 

“Well you see,” Percy spoke, with the most childish grin he’d indulged in in years, “It’s not here. We actually all died tragically on our quest, and are just figments of your-” 

Backbiter found it’s way against his throat, tip pressing hard enough to draw a small drop of blood, from the feel of it. 

“Now, I know you’re just a stupid kid, so i’ll let that one slide, but this is no game, Percy. Last chance.” 

He stopped smiling, if only because his face was starting to hurt. 

“Well, I didn’t lie about one thing. It’s not here. We sent it on ahead.” 

Luke’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying. You couldn’t have...” His face reddened as a horrible possibility occurred to him. “Clarisse?” 

Percy nodded. “You trusted… you gave... ” 

“Yeah, you’d think after all you did I’d come out with some trust issues, but-” 

“Agrius!” The bear giant flinched. “Y-yes?” 

“Get below and prepare my steed. Bring it to the deck. I need to fly to the Miami Airport, fast!” 

“But, boss-” 

“Do it!” Luke screamed. “Or I’ll feed you to the drakon!” 

The bear-man gulped and lumbered down the stairs. Luke paced in front of the swimming pool, cursing in Ancient Greek, gripping his sword so tight his knuckles turned white. The rest of Luke’s crew looked uneasy. Maybe they’d never seen their boss so unhinged before. 

Glancing at the swimming pool, at the fountains spraying mist into the air, making a rainbow in the sunset, Percy had an idea; partly to mess with Luke, but mostly to clear Chiron’s name before they got back to camp. He wasn’t exactly Shakespere, but he’d played his part in this wonderfully messed-up universe a few times. 

“You’ve been toying with us all along,” he said, “You wanted us to bring you the Fleece and save you the trouble of getting it.” 

Luke scowled. “Of course, you idiot! And you’ve messed everything up!”

“Traitor!” He dug into his pockets, begging for there to be a drachma in there somewhere. Well, at least one wish was being granted today, now back to the regularly-scheduled programming of thousand-years bad luck.

Luke dodged the coin easily, looking confused, but mostly smug that that was the best his ‘prisoner’ could do. As it landed in the mist behind his enemy, Percy prayed:  _ O goddess, accept my offering.  _

“You tricked all of us!” he yelled at Luke. “Even DIONYSUS at CAMP HALF-BLOOD!” 

Behind Luke, the fountain began to shimmer, but for this to work he'd need all eyes on him, so he uncapped Riptide. Luke just sneered. 

“This is no time for heroics, Percy. Drop your puny little sword, or I’ll have you killed sooner rather than later.” 

“Who poisoned Thalia’s tree, Luke?” 

“I did, of course,” he snarled. “I already told you that. I used elder python venom, straight from the depths of Tartarus.” 

“Chiron had nothing to do with it?” 

“Ha! You know he would never do that. The old fool wouldn’t have the guts.” 

“You really call that? Betraying your friends? Endangering the whole camp?” 

Luke raised his sword. “You don’t understand the half of it. I was going to let you take the Fleece… once I was done with it.” 

“Done with healing Kronos, you mean.” he said. 

“Yes! The Fleece’s magic would’ve sped his mending process by tenfold. But you haven’t stopped us, Percy. You’ve only slowed us down a little.” 

“And so you poisoned the tree, you betrayed Thalia, you set us up—all to help Kronos destroy the gods.” 

Luke gritted his teeth. “You know that! Why do you keep asking me?” 

“Oh, I just want everybody in the audience to hear you.” 

“ _ What _ audience?” Then his eyes narrowed. He looked behind him and his goons did the same. They gasped and stumbled back.

Above the pool, shimmering in the rainbow mist, was an Iris-message vision of Dionysus, Tantalus, and the whole camp in the dining pavilion. They sat in stunned silence, watching them.

“Well,” said Dionysus dryly, “some unplanned dinner entertainment.” 

“Mr. D, you heard him,” Percy said. “You all heard Luke. The poisoning of the tree wasn’t Chiron’s fault.”

Mr. D sighed. “I suppose not.” 

“The Iris-message could be a trick,” Tantalus suggested, but his attention was mostly on his cheeseburger, which he was trying to corner with both hands. 

“I fear not,” Mr. D said, looking with distaste at Tantalus. “It appears I shall have to reinstate Chiron as activities director. I suppose I do miss the old horse’s pinochle games.” 

Tantalus grabbed the cheeseburger. It didn’t bolt away from him. He lifted it from the plate and stared at it in amazement, as if it were the largest diamond in the world. “I got it!” he cackled. 

“We are no longer in need of your services, Tantalus,” Mr. D announced. 

Tantalus looked stunned. “What? But-” 

“You may return to the Underworld. You are dismissed.” 

“No! But - Nooooooooooo!” As he dissolved into mist, his fingers clutched at the cheeseburger, trying to bring it to his mouth. But it was too late. He disappeared and the cheeseburger fell back onto its plate. The campers exploded into cheering. 

Luke bellowed with rage. He slashed his sword through the fountain and the Iris-message dissolved, but the deed was done. Then he turned to Percy with a murderous look. 

“Kronos was right, Percy. You’re an unreliable weapon. You need to be replaced.” 

One of his men blew a brass whistle, and the deck doors flew open. A dozen more warriors poured out, making a circle around them, the brass tips of their spears bristling. 

Luke smiled. “You’ll never leave this boat alive.”

Percy shrugged. “People say that all the time. Yet here I am, still alive. Not like you’d ever fight me one-on-one like a man, anyway.” 

Luke curled his lip. The soldiers who were about to kill us hesitated, waiting for his order. Before he could say anything, Agrius, the bear-man, burst onto the deck leading a flying horse. It was a pure-black pegasus, with wings like a giant raven. She pegasus bucked and whinnied, and for a painful moment Percy was reminded of Blackjack. 

“Sir!” Agrius called, dodging a pegasus hoof. “Your steed is ready!” 

Luke kept his eyes trained on Percy. “I told you last summer, Percy,” he said. “You can’t bait me into a fight.” 

“And you keep avoiding one,” he replied. “Are you really that scared of ‘stupid kid’ with a sword?” 

Luke glanced at his men, and he saw he’d been trapped. If he backed down now, he would look weak. If he fought, he’d lose valuable time chasing after Clarisse. 

For his part, Percy knew he could handle Luke in a fight - a fair one, anyways. 

“I’ll kill you quickly,” he decided, and raised his weapon. Backbiter was a foot longer than Anaklusmos, its blade glinted with an evil gray-and-gold light where the human steel had been melded with celestial bronze.

Luke whistled to one of his men, who threw him a round leather-and-bronze shield. He grinned at me wickedly. 

“Luke,” Annabeth said, “at least give him a shield.” 

“Sorry, Annabeth,” he said. “You bring your own equipment to this party.”

Percy wasn’t too worried about not having a shield, considering he usually fought without one. Or if he did have one, he usually ditched it in order to use Riptide two-handed for more power - especially nowadays, in a smaller and weaker body. (Though he was secretly proud of the bit of muscle he’d built up over the school year, with his own training in between his school and home life.)

Luke rushed forward, going for a straight stab right through the ribs - well wasn’t that familiar. But he sidestepped, and Backbiter only grazed his arm. For the brief moment his opponent was pulling his sword back for another strike, Percy swung - ideally he wouldn’t cut the guy in half, just get his shoulder good enough to end the fight. Instead, Luke jumped back, and Riptide barely tore his shirt. 

He called for the pool water to rise in one big wave and smash right into Luke - the force of the water knocked him down, spluttering and blinded. But before Percy could strike, he rolled aside and was on his feet again. 

The son of Poesidon went for a downward strike, but only sliced off the corner of Luke’s shield, who then dropped to a crouch and jabbed at Percy’s legs. 

Suddenly there was a burning pain in his thigh, but he ignored it in favor of putting Riptide through the enemy’s still outstretched arm. Luke howled, and dropped Backbiter, but swiftly retrieved the sword with his other hand. It looked almost as natural in his left hand, and Percy cursed about stupid abidextrous fighters. 

Luke hacked downward and he rolled behind a deck chair; when he tried to stand, his wouldn’t take the weight. 

“Perrrrrcy!” Grover bleated. 

He rolled again as Luke’s sword slashed the deck chair in half, metal pipes and all. Percy needed to make it to the pool, just sit at the bottom and let it heal him for a moment, but Luke would never allow that. He advanced slowly, smiling. The edge of his sword was tinged with red. 

“One thing I want you to watch before you die, Percy.” He looked at the bear-man Oreius, who was still holding Annabeth and Grover by the necks. “You can eat your dinner now, Oreius. Bon appetit.” 

“He-he! He-he!” The bear-man lifted Percy’s friends and bared his teeth. That’s when all Hades broke loose. 

_ Whish! _ A red-feathered arrow sprouted from Oreius’s mouth. With a surprised look on his hairy face, he crumpled to the deck. 

“Brother!” Agrius wailed. He let the pegasus’s reins go slack just long enough for the black steed to kick him in the head and fly away free over Miami Bay. 

For a split second, Luke’s guards were too stunned to do anything except watch the bear twins’ bodies dissolve into smoke. 

Then there was a wild chorus of war cries and hooves thundering against metal. A dozen centaurs charged out of the main stairwell.

“Ponies!” Tyson cried with delight. 

Percy grinned, almost if not just as excited as his brother, but for different reasons. Chiron was among the crowd, but his relatives were almost nothing like him. There were centaurs with black Arabian stallion bodies, others with gold palomino coats, others with orange-and-white spots like paint horses. Some wore brightly colored t-shirts with Day-Glo letters that said PARTY PONIES: SOUTH FLORIDA CHAPTER. Some were armed with bows, some with baseball bats, some with paintball guns. One had his face painted like a Comanche warrior and was waving a large orange Styrofoam hand making a big Number 1. Another was bare chested and painted entirely green. A third had googly-eye glasses with the eyeballs bouncing around on Slinky coils, and one of those baseball caps with soda-can-and-straw attachments on either side. 

They exploded onto the deck with such ferocity and color that for a moment even Luke was stunned. It was hard to tell whether they had come to celebrate or attack. 

Apparently both. As Luke was raising his sword to rally his troops, a centaur shot a custom-made arrow with a leather boxing glove on the end. It smacked Luke in the face and sent him crashing into the swimming pool. His warriors scattered. Percy couldn’t blame them. Facing the hooves of a rearing stallion is scary enough, but when it’s a centaur, armed with a bow and whooping it up in a soda-drinking hat, even the bravest warrior would retreat. 

“Come get some!” yelled one of the party ponies. They let loose with their paintball guns. A wave of blue and yellow exploded against Luke’s warriors, blinding them and splattering them from head to toe. They tried to run, only to slip and fall. 

Chiron galloped toward Annabeth and Grover, neatly plucked them off the deck, and deposited them on his back. He tried to get up, but his leg just crumpled again and refused to let him stand.

Luke was crawling out of the pool. “Attack, you fools!” he ordered his troops. Somewhere down below deck, a large alarm bell thrummed. 

He knew any second they would be swamped by Luke’s reinforcements. Already, his warriors were getting over their surprise, coming at the centaurs with swords and spears drawn. 

Tyson slapped half a dozen of them aside, knocking them over the guardrail into Miami Bay. But more warriors were coming up the stairs. 

“Withdraw, brethren!” Chiron said. 

“You won’t get away with this, horse man!” Luke shouted. He raised his sword, but got smacked in the face with another boxing glove arrow, and sat down hard in a deck chair. 

A palomino centaur hoisted him up and onto his back. “Dude, get your big friend!” 

“Tyson!” Percy yelled. “Come on!” 

Tyson dropped the two warriors he was about to tie into a knot and jogged after them. He jumped on the centaur’s back. 

“Dude!” the centaur groaned, almost buckling under Tyson’s weight. “Do the words ‘low-carb diet’ mean anything to you?” Percy wanted to laugh at that, but the blood-loss was getting to him, so he just leaned back against his brother’s front and tried to keep his eyes open. 

Luke’s warriors were organizing themselves into a phalanx. But by the time they were ready to advance, the centaurs had galloped to the edge of the deck and fearlessly jumped the guardrail, as if it were a steeplechase and not ten stories above the ground. 

For a son of Poesidon, he sure was seeing a lot of air-time lately. He was sure they were going to die. They plummeted toward the docks, but the centaurs hit the asphalt with hardly a jolt and galloped off, whooping and yelling taunts at the  _ Princess Andromeda _ as they raced into the streets of downtown Miami. 

He has no idea what the Miamians thought as they galloped by. They probably just saw a bunch of crazy kids riding horses through the streets. 

Streets and buildings began to blur as the centaurs picked up speed. It felt as if space were compacting - as if each centaur step took us miles and miles. Somewhere in his mind, Percy knew that was actually pretty close to the answer, but didn’t dwell on it for long. In no time, they’d left the city behind. They raced through marshy fields of high grass and ponds and stunted trees, before finally, they found themselves in a trailer park at the edge of a lake. The trailers were all horse trailers, tricked out with televisions and mini-refrigerators and mosquito netting. It was a centaur camp. 

“Dude!” said a party pony as he unloaded his gear. “Did you see that bear guy? He was all like: ‘Whoa, I have an arrow in my mouth!’” 

The centaur with the googly-eye glasses laughed. “That was awesome! Head slam!” The two centaurs charged at each other full-force and knocked heads, then went staggering off in different directions with crazy grins on their faces. 

Chiron sighed. He set Annabeth and Grover down on a picnic blanket next to Percy. “I really wish my cousins wouldn’t slam their heads together. They don’t have the brain cells to spare.” 

“Chiron,” he said, setting a shaky hand over his leg and feeling the warm blood beneath. It was a weak attempt to stem the flow, but really just made it hurt more. “You saved us.” 

The centaur gave a dry smile. “Well now, I couldn’t very well let you die, especially since you’ve cleared my name.”

“But how did you know where we were?” Annabeth asked. 

“Advanced planning, my dear. I figured you would wash up near Miami if you made it out of the Sea of Monsters alive. Almost everything strange washes up near Miami.” 

“Gee, thanks,” Grover mumbled. 

“No, no,” Chiron said. “I didn’t mean... Oh, never mind. I _ am _ glad to see you, my young satyr. The point is, I was able to eavesdrop on Percy’s Iris-message and trace the signal. Iris and I have been friends for centuries. I asked her to alert me to any important communications in this area. It then took no effort to convince my cousins to ride to your aid. As you see, centaurs can travel quite fast when we wish to. Distance for us is not the same as distance for humans.” 

Over at the campfire, three party ponies were teaching Tyson to operate a paintball gun. Percy hoped they knew what they were getting into. 

“So what now?” he asked Chiron. “Luke’s got Kronos aboard that ship. Or parts of him, anyway.” 

Chiron knelt, carefully folding his front legs underneath him. He opened the medicine pouch on his belt and started to treat Percy’s wounds. “I’m afraid, Percy, that today has been something of a draw. We didn’t have the strength of numbers to take that ship. Luke was not organized enough to pursue us. Nobody won.” 

“But we got the Fleece!” Annabeth said. “Clarisse is on her way back to camp with it right now.” 

Chiron nodded, though he still looked uneasy. Percy wondered what he was thinking - if he knew about Thalia already.“You are all true heroes. And as soon as we get Percy fixed up, you must return to Half-Blood Hill. The centaurs shall carry you.” 

“You’re coming with us, then?” He mumbled. 

“Oh yes. I’ll be relieved to get home. My brethren here simply do not appreciate Dean Martin’s music. Besides, I must have some words with Mr. D. There’s the rest of the summer to plan. So much training to do. And I want to see… I’m curious about the Fleece.” 

Over by the campfire, Tyson let loose with his paintball gun. A blue projectile splattered against one of the centaurs, hurling him backward into the lake. The centaur came up grinning, covered in swamp muck and blue paint, and gave Tyson two thumbs up. 

“Annabeth,” Chiron said, “perhaps you and Grover would go supervise Tyson and my cousins before they, ah, teach each other too many bad habits?” 

Annabeth met his eyes. Some kind of understanding passed between them. 

“Sure, Chiron,” Annabeth said. “Come on, goat boy.” 

“But I don’t like paintball.” 

“Yes, you do.” She hoisted Grover to his hooves and led him off toward the campfire. Chiron finished bandaging Percy’s leg. 

“Percy, I had a talk with Annabeth on the way here. A talk about the prophecy.” 

“You did, huh? I already know it’s about me, it’s alright.”

Chiron tucked his bandages back into his pouch. “You’re not yet sixteen, Percy. For now we must simply train you as best we can, and leave the future to the Fates.” 

The Fates. He hadn’t thought about those old ladies in a long time, but as soon as Chiron mentioned them, he remembered something. 

“That’s what it meant,” he said. 

Chiron frowned. “That’s what what meant?” 

“Last summer. The omen from the Fates, when I saw them snip somebody’s life string. Grover thought it meant I was going to die right away, but it’s actually got something to do with your prophecy. The death they foretold - it’s going to happen when I’m sixteen.” And boy, wasn’t he just  _ thrilled  _ to relive that decision all over again. Maybe this time he could just say ‘screw it’ and let Olympus fall. He’s saved their asses enough times as it is. His therapist  _ had  _ mentioned it wasn’t always a good idea to revisit the scene of traumatic events, and this was a lot more than just stopping by.

Chiron’s tail whisked nervously in the grass. “My boy, you can’t be sure of that. We don’t even know if the prophecy is about you.”

“Something tells me my life isn’t fortunate enough for it to be about anyone else. Besides, Kronos is rising. He wants to destroy Olympus.” 

“He will try,” Chiron agreed. “And Western Civilization along with it, if we don’t stop him. But we will stop him. You will  _ not _ be alone in that fight.” 

Ha. Technically, he wouldn’t be, but the choice was going to be up to him and him alone, in the end. 

“You know, sometimes I wonder why fate always sends one person to do a lot of these epic quests. Seems like you’d want to send more than just one lousy hero to save the world.” 

Chiron managed a smile. “‘Just one lousy hero’? Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain said something like that to me once, just before he single-handedly changed the course of your Civil War.” 

He pulled an arrow from his quiver and turned the razor-sharp tip so it glinted in the firelight. “Celestial bronze, Percy. An immortal weapon. What would happen if you shot this at a human?” 

“Nothing, it’d pass right through.” 

“That’s right,” he said. “Humans don’t exist on the same level as the immortals. They can’t even be hurt by our weapons. But you, Percy - you are part god, part human. You live in both worlds. You can be harmed by both, and you can affect both. That’s what makes heroes so special. You carry the hopes of humanity into the realm of the eternal. Monsters never die. They are reborn from the chaos and barbarism that is always bubbling underneath civilization, the very stuff that makes Kronos stronger. They must be defeated again and again, kept at bay. Heroes embody that struggle. You fight the battles humanity must win, every generation, in order to stay human. Do you understand?” 

“I guess. Maybe it’s a good thing most half-bloods die so young. Seems like the sorta thing that would make you go insane after a while,” Percy chuckled. As if he wasn’t self-aware enough already. 

Chiron looked like he wanted to say something about that, but either couldn’t find the words or just chose to stay silent. 

“You know, Chiron… this all must be pretty tough on you, huh? I mean, everyone blamed you for something your father did. Sounds kinda familiar to me.” 

The centaur nodded, a careful smile on his face. “Perhaps we are more similar than we first appear, Percy.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	12. Eye of the storm

They arrived in Long Island just after Clarisse, thanks to the centaurs’ travel powers. He rode on Chiron’s back, but they didn’t talk much, especially not about Kronos. Mostly because Percy didn’t want to make the centaur feel any worse, and partly because he’d lost at least a liter or so of blood and could barely stay awake. 

When they got to camp, the centaurs were anxious to meet Dionysus. They’d heard he threw some really wild parties, but they were disappointed. The wine god was in no mood to celebrate as the whole camp gathered at the top of Half-Blood Hill. 

The camp had been through a hard two weeks. The arts and crafts cabin had burned to the ground from an attack by a Draco Aionius (giant fire-breathing lizard, man that had to have sucked). The Big House’s rooms were overflowing with wounded. The kids in the Apollo cabin, who were the best healers, had been working overtime performing first aid. Idly, Percy wondered how Will was doing right now. 

Everybody looked weary and battered as they crowded around Thalia’s tree. The moment Clarisse draped the Golden Fleece over the lowest bough, the moonlight seemed to brighten, turning from gray to liquid silver. A cool breeze rustled in the branches and rippled through the grass, all the way into the valley. Everything came into sharper focus - the glow of the fireflies down in the woods, the smell of the strawberry fields, the sound of the waves on the beach. Gradually, the needles on the pine tree started turning from brown to green. 

Everybody cheered. It was happening slowly, but there could be no doubt - the Fleece’s magic was seeping into the tree, filling it with new power and expelling the poison. Chiron ordered a twenty-four/seven guard duty on the hilltop, at least until he could find an appropriate monster to protect the Fleece. He said he’d place an ad in Olympus Weekly right away. In the meantime, Clarisse was carried on her cabin mates’ shoulders down to the amphitheater, where she was honored with a laurel wreath and a lot of celebrating around the campfire. 

Percy was really happy for her. If Luke had been given a chance like her, he might not have turned out the way he did. It was nice to see someone having such a good time in the middle of all this miserableness. 

Nobody gave him or Annabeth a second look. It was as if they’d never left. In a way that was for the best, because if they admitted they’d snuck out of camp to do the quest, they’d have to be expelled. It felt good to be just one of the campers, and blend in while he could; Clarisse’s prophecy still weighed heavily on his mind. 

Later that night, as they were roasting s’mores and listening to the Stoll brothers tell a ghost story about an evil king who was eaten alive by demonic breakfast pastries, Clarisse shoved him from behind and whispered in his ear, “Just because you were cool one time, Jackson, don’t think you’re off the hook with Ares. I’m still waiting for the right opportunity to pulverize you.” 

He gave her a fond smile, knowing this was the closest to friendship they’d get for now. 

“What?” she demanded. 

“Nothing,” he said placatingly. “Just good to be home.” 

The next morning, after the party ponies headed back to Florida, Chiron made a surprise announcement: the chariot races would go ahead as scheduled. They’d all figured they were history now that Tantalus was gone, but completing them did feel like the right thing to do, especially now that Chiron was back and the camp was safe. 

Tyson was excited to work on the Athena-Poseidon chariot again, fixing it up and adding all sorts of special upgrades. This time Percy would drive, Annabeth would defend, and Tyson would act as their pit crew. 

While he worked with the horses, they spent the next two days training like crazy. He and Annabeth agreed that if they won, the prize of no chores for the rest of the month would be split between the two cabins. Since Athena had more campers, they would get most of the time off, which was fine by him. He just wanted to do something with his brother and (soon-to-be, he swears) girlfriend. 

The night before the race, Percy stayed late at the stables. He was talking to their horses, giving them one final brushing, when somebody right behind him said, “Fine animals, horses. Wish I’d thought of them.” 

A middle-aged guy in a postal carrier outfit was leaning against the stable door. He was slim, with curly black hair under his white pith helmet, and he had a mailbag slung over his shoulder. 

“Oh… hey Hermes,” Percy said, a little startled. He still felt a little guilty about Luke, considering how determined the god was not to give up on his son. And the fact that he knew full well Luke wouldn’t make it out of this war alive. 

“Hello, Percy. Didn’t recognize me without my jogging clothes?” 

“Kinda. This suits you more, though.” 

The god arched smiled, laughing a little. 

“By the way, Hermes… I did see Luke on our quest. Twice, actually.” 

“But you weren’t able to talk sense into him?” Hermes guessed. 

“Well, we talked a lot. Then we had a duel and tried to kill each other.” 

“I see. You tried the diplomatic approach.” 

“I’m sorry. I mean, I don’t really think… okay, well I’m not gonna lie and say I don’t think he’s a bad guy. But I do think there is good in him, somewhere. He’s just had a rough time and never dealt with some of his issues properly. He feels like you abandoned him.” 

Hermes sighed, the sound seeming like a gunshot in the silence of the night. “Do you ever feel your father abandoned you, Percy?” 

_ That  _ was a question and a half. Short answer? Yes. He used to think that all the time. Nowadays, he doesn’t really think about it so much, since he has a better understanding of the gods’ lives. He’ll never really  _ stop  _ feeling that way, in some senses, but he’s accepted it for what it is and let go of (most of ) his anger. Percy shrugged in lieu of an answer. 

Hermes readjusted the mailbag on his shoulder. “Percy, the hardest part about being a god is that you must often act indirectly, especially when it comes to your own children. If we were to intervene every time our children had a problem… well, that would only create more problems and more resentment. But I believe if you give it some thought, you will see that Poseidon has been paying attention to you. He has answered your prayers. I can only hope that someday, Luke may realize the same about me. Whether you feel like you succeeded or not, you reminded Luke who he was. You spoke to him.” 

“I… didn’t really do a good job, though. Best I could do was not go for any fatal blows.” 

Hermes shrugged. “Families are messy. Immortal families are eternally messy. Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we’re related, for better or worse... and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum.” 

It didn’t sound like much of a recipe for the perfect family, but Percy knew that’s just how it was. In the distance, the conch horn sounded, signaling curfew. 

“You should get to bed,” Hermes said. “I’ve helped you get into quite enough trouble this summer already. I really only came to make this delivery.” 

“A delivery?” 

“I  _ am  _ the messenger of the gods, Percy.” He took an electronic signature pad from his mailbag and handed it to me. “Sign there, please.”

Percy took the attached stylus, only flinching a little when George and Martha wringled around it to form a sort of grip, like the glittery ones they sell in dollar stores. He signed his name, doodling a little smiley face in the ‘o’ of Jackson just for the sake of it.

In exchange, Hermes handed him a sea-blue envelope. It was obviously from his father. 

“Good luck tomorrow,” Hermes said. “Fine team of horses you have there, though you’ll excuse me if I root for the Hermes cabin.” 

_ And don’t be too discouraged when you read it, dear, _ Martha told him.  _ He does have your interests at heart. _

Don’t mind her, George said. _ And next time, remember, snakes work for tips. Bring some rats.  _

“Enough, you two,” Hermes said. “Good-bye, Percy. For now.” 

Small white wings sprouted from his pith helmet. He began to glow, and Percy still wanted to live enough to avert eyes before the god revealed his true divine form. With a brilliant white flash he was gone, and he was alone with the horses. 

He started at the letter in his hands - it was addressed in the strong but elegant handwriting of his father.

**Percy Jackson**

**c/o Camp Half-Blood**

**Farm Road 3.141**

**Long Island, New York 11954**

An actual letter. One Percy remembered, because it still sat in a shoebox under his bed at home - well, it used to. As an adult, he still had so few physical gifts and messages from Poesidon that he childishly kept them in a shoebox so he could… reminisce or something. Dr. Keeton said it was totally normal, alright? 

There were two simple words printed in the middle of the page, when he finally opened it for the sake of courtesy: 

_ Brace Yourself _

Percy tucked the letter into his pocket, and placed it on his nightstand when he returned to his cabin. It stared at him all night, before he finally fell into a dreamless sleep. 

The next morning, everybody was buzzing about the chariot race, though they kept glancing nervously toward the sky like they expected to see Stymphalian birds gathering. None did. It was a beautiful summer day with blue sky and plenty of sunshine. The camp had started to look the way it should look: the meadows were green and lush; the white columns gleamed on the Greek buildings; dryads played happily in the woods.

Percy spent his time at breakfast not actually eating, mostly tugging on the leather cords around his neck and threading his fingers through the dozen or so charms on his left arm. The bracelets weren’t as worn as his necklace, being slightly newer, but were just as familiar and comforting. For once he wasn’t anxious because he did or didn’t know what was going to happen, he was just restless and antsy about the race. 

Later, as he and Annabeth drove onto the track, he couldn’t help admiring the work Tyson had done on the Athena chariot. The carriage gleamed with bronze reinforcements. The wheels were realigned with magical suspension so they glided along with hardly a bump. The rigging for the horses was so perfectly balanced that the team turned at the slightest tug of the reins. 

Tyson had also made them two javelins, each with three buttons on the shaft. The first button primed the javelin to explode on impact, releasing razor wire that would tangle and shred an opponent’s wheels. The second button produced a blunt (but still very painful) bronze spearhead designed to knock a driver out of his carriage. The third button brought up a grappling hook that could be used to lock onto an enemy’s chariot or push it away. 

He figured we were in pretty good shape for the race as far as preparation wenr, but Tyson still warned him to be careful. The other chariot teams had plenty of tricks up their togas. 

“Here,” he said, just before the race began. He handed Percy a wristwatch. 

There wasn’t anything outwardly special about it, but he grinned anyways, knowing the secret behind the gift.

“If you need protection in race,” he advised, “hit the button.”

“Thanks, man. And, I... ” Percy was going to say something, probably something encouraging, but he couldn’t quite put the words together, and fumbled. 

“I know what you will tell me,” Tyson said, looking ashamed. “Poseidon did care for me after all.” 

“What?” 

“He sent you to help me. Just what I asked for.” 

Percy blinked. “You asked Poseidon for me?” When? After they got separated on the CSS Birmingham?

“For a friend,” Tyson said, twisting his shirt in his hands. “Young Cyclopes grow up alone on the streets, learn to make things out of scraps. Learn to survive.” 

“That’s awful, Tyson.” 

He shook his head earnestly. “Makes us appreciate blessings, not be greedy and mean and fat like Polyphemus. But I got scared. Monsters chased me so much, clawed me sometimes-” 

“The scars on your back?” Yeah, there may be nice monsters, but there were more than a few on Percy’s shit-list. Namely the ones living around a certain alleyway in Manhattan.

A tear welled in his eye. “Sphinx on Seventy-second Street. Big bully. I prayed to Daddy for help. Soon the people at Meriwether found me. Met you. Biggest blessing ever. Sorry I said Poseidon was mean. He sent me a brother.” 

“Percy!” Annabeth called, before Percy could respond. “Come on!” 

Chiron was at the starting line, ready to blow the conch. 

“Tyson… I love you, man. See you after the race.” he said. 

“I love my brother Percy too,” Tyson said. “Now go. You will win!” 

He nodded and climbed on board the chariot and got into position just as Chiron blew the starting signal. 

The horses knew what to do, and they shot down the track so fast he would’ve fallen out if his arms hadn’t been wrapped in the leather reins. Annabeth held on tight to the rail. The wheels glided beautifully. They took the first turn a full chariot-length ahead of Clarisse, who was busy trying to fight off a javelin attack from the Stoll brothers in the Hermes chariot. 

He almost felt hopeful before Annabeth yelled “Incoming!” and threw her first javelin in grappling hook mode, knocking away a lead-weighted net that would have entangled them both. Apollo’s chariot had come up on their flank. 

Before Annabeth could rearm herself, the Apollo warrior threw a javelin into their right wheel. The javelin shattered, but not before snapping some of the spokes. The chariot lurched and wobbled. He urged the horses to keep their pace, in spire of the wheel threatening to collapse. 

They were now neck and neck with Apollo, with Hephaestus coming up close behind. Ares and Hermes were falling behind, riding side by side as Clarisse went sword-on-javelin with Connor Stoll. 

“You’re mine!” the driver from Apollo yelled. He was a first-year camper, but he sure was confident. 

“Yeah, right!” Annabeth shouted back. She picked up her second javelin - a real risk considering they still had one full lap to go - and threw it at the Apollo driver. Her aim was perfect. The javelin grew a heavy spear point just as it caught the driver in the chest, knocking him against his teammate and sending them both toppling out of their chariot in a backward somersault. 

The horses felt the reins go slack and went crazy, riding straight for the crowd. Campers scrambled for cover as the horses leaped the corner of the bleachers and the golden chariot flipped over. The horses galloped back toward their stable, dragging the upside-down chariot behind them. 

Percy helt their chariot through the next turn, grimacing at how tightly the reins squeezed his arms, pinching the skin. They passed the starting line and started on their final lap. The axle creaked and moaned, the wobbling wheel was making them lose speed even with the horses responding so well to him. 

The Hephaestus team was still gaining. Beckendorf grinned as he pressed a button on his command console, and steel cables shot out of the front of his mechanical horses, wrapping around their back rail. The Athena-Poseidon chariot shuddered as Beckendorf ’s winch system started working - pulling them backward while Beckendorf pulled himself forward. Annabeth cursed and drew her knife, hacking at the cables, but they were too thick.

“Can’t cut them!” she yelled. The Hephaestus chariot was now dangerously close, their horses about to trample them underfoot. 

“Switch with me!” he called to Annabeth. “Take the reins!” 

“But-” 

“Trust me!” 

She pulled herself to the front and grabbed the reins. He turned, trying hard to keep his footing as he drew Riptide, and slashed down; the cables snapped like kite string. They lurched forward, but Beckendorf ’s driver just swung his chariot to their left and pulled up next to their chariot. Beckendorf drew his sword and slashed at Annabeth, and Percy parried the blade away. 

They were coming up on the last turn, he needed to disable the Hephaestus chariot and get it out of the way. The two chariots were neck and neck now, Clarisse coming up from behind, making up for lost time. 

“See ya, Percy!” Beckendorf yelled. “Here’s a little parting gift!” He threw a leather pouch into our chariot. It stuck to the floor immediately and began billowing green smoke. 

“Greek fire!” Annabeth yelled. “Get rid of it!”

Grumbling to himself about asking Tyson for a voice-commanded shield next time, Percy pressed the stopwatch button on his present for earlier as he fended off Beckendorf’s blade. Instantly, the watch changed. It expanded, the metal rim spiraling outward like an old-fashioned camera shutter, a leather strap wrapping around his forearm until he was holding a round war shield four feet wide, the inside soft leather, the outside polished bronze engraved with designs he didn’t have time to look at right now. 

He raised the shield, and when Beckedorf’s blade came down against it, it shattered. Percy used the moment of confusion and rage to snatch up the pouch of Greek Fire and toss it into Hephestus’s chariot. Then he mentally urged their horses to pull ahead before that disaster happened right nextdoor. 

Beckendorf and his driver made the wise decision to jump ship, and said ship careened away and exploded in green flames. The metal horses seemed to short-circuit. They turned and dragged the burning wreckage back toward Clarisse and the Stoll brothers, who had to swerve to avoid it.

Annabeth pulled the reins for the last turn. Percy held on, sure that their wheel would collapse any second, but somehow she brought them through and spurred the horses across the finish line. The crowd roared. 

Once the chariot stopped, their friends came over and mobbed them. They started chanting his and Annabeth’s names, but she yelled over the noise: “Hold up! Listen! It wasn’t just us!” 

The crowd didn’t want to be quiet, but Annabeth made herself heard: “We couldn’t have done it without somebody else! We couldn’t have won this race or gotten the Fleece or saved Grover or anything! We owe our lives to Tyson, Percy’s...” 

“My brother!” Percy shouted over the noise. “Tyson, my baby brother.” Tyson blushed. The crowd cheered. Annabeth planted a kiss on his cheek. The roaring got a lot louder after that. The entire Athena cabin lifted he, Annabeth and Tyson onto their shoulders and carried them toward the winner’s platform, where Chiron was waiting to bestow the laurel wreaths.

Best moment of his second life so far? This. Absolutely this. Too bad it wouldn’t last for very long.

Grover announced that he’d be able to spend the rest of the summer at camp before resuming his quest for Pan. His bosses at the Council of Cloven Elders were so impressed that he hadn’t gotten himself killed and had cleared the way for future searchers, that they granted him a two-month furlough and a new set of reed pipes. 

The only bad news: Grover insisted on playing those pipes all afternoon long, and his musical skills hadn’t improved much. He played “YMCA,” and the strawberry plants started going crazy, wrapping around the camper's feet like they were trying to strangle them. Percy couldn’t blame them. 

Grover said he could dissolve their empathy link, now that they were face to face, but Percy insisted he’d prefer to keep the link.

He put down his reeds pipes and stared. “But, if I get in trouble again, you’ll be in danger, Percy! You could die!” 

“If you get in trouble again, I want to know about it. And I’ll come help you again, G-man. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” 

In the end he agreed not to break the link. He went back to playing “YMCA” for the strawberry plants. No one needed an empathy link or special satyr senses to tell how the strawberries felt about it. 

Later on during archery class, Chiron pulled him aside and said he’d fixed Percy’s problems with Meriwether Prep. The school no longer blamed him for destroying their gymnasium, the police were no longer looking for him around every corner. 

“And how’d you manage that?” he asked with a small smile. 

Chiron’s eyes twinkled. “I merely suggested that the mortals had seen something different on that day - a furnace explosion that was not your fault.”

“Oh, asking politely is always the way to go. Before cracking some skulls.” 

The centaur chuckled. “I merely manipulated the Mist. Someday, when you’re ready, I’ll show how it’s done.” 

Percy grinned and nodded. He’d never been too great at that - the best he could usually do was make the Mist thicker around whatever he was trying to hide, and let its natural concealing abilities do all the work. Maybe some lessons would be helpful. 

“So, am I going back to Meriweather, then?” 

Chiron raised his eyebrows. “Oh, no, they’ve still expelled you. Your headmaster, Mr. Bonsai, said you had - how did he put it?—un-groovy karma that disrupted the school’s educational aura. But you’re not in any legal trouble, which was a relief to your mother. Oh, and speaking of your mother...” He unclipped his cell phone from his quiver and handed it to him. “It’s high time you called her.” 

The worst part was by far the initial “Percy-Jacksonwhat-were-you- thinking-do-you-have-anyidea-howworried-I-was-sneaking-off-to-camp-without- permissiongoing-on-dangerous-quests-andscaring-me-half-to-death” part. But finally she paused to catch her breath. “Oh, I’m just glad you’re safe!” 

That’s one of the things he loves most about his mom - she’s just no good at staying angry. It had been helpful talking to her about his own anger issues, when he was younger. 

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Percy finally said. “I won’t do… that specific sequence of events ever again. Probably.” 

Sally sighed. “I suppose that’s the best I can ask for, isn’t it?” He could hear the smile in her voice; she knew he couldn’t promise to never get in trouble again, to never worry her. It would only get worse from here.

“I could come home for a while,” he offered. “We could have a week away somewhere?”

“No, no. Stay at camp. Train. Do what you need to do. But you will come home for the next school year?” 

“Yeah. of course. If anyone will take me, at this point.” 

They shared a laugh. 

“Oh, we’ll find something, dear, some place where they don’t know us yet.”

The next bad news came with Tyson. Oh sure, the campers treated him like a hero, that was all fine still, but he knew his brother wouldn’t be sticking around for the rest of the summer. 

That evening, as they sat on a dune overlooking the Long Island Sound, Tyson made an announcement that Percy had been dreading for a while. 

“Dream came from Daddy last night,” he said. “He wants me to visit.” 

“Poseidon sent you a dream message?” Percy asked, not taking his eyes off the dirt on one of his shoes. It was easier to look at than to say goodbye.

Tyson nodded. “Wants me to go underwater for the rest of the summer. Learn to work at Cyclopes’ forges. He called it an inter-an intern-” 

“An internship.” 

“Yes.”

“When would you leave?” 

“Now.” 

“Now. Like, right now?” 

“Now.” Percy lifted his eyes to stare into the water once more, thinking for a moment as he twisted the ring on his thumb for comfort.

“I’m happy for you, big guy,” he managed. “Seriously.” 

“Hard to leave my new brother,” he said with a tremble in his voice. “But I want to make things. Weapons for the camp. You will need them.”

“You’ll make the best weapons ever,” Percy told the cyclops, holding up the watch proudly. “I bet they’ll tell good time, too.” 

Tyson sniffled. “Brothers help each other.” 

“Yeah. And you’ll always be my brother.” 

He patted Percy on the back so hard he almost knocked him down the sand dune. Then he wiped a tear from his cheek and stood to go. “Use the shield well.” 

“I will, big guy.”

“Save your life some day,” and Percy knew it would. 

He headed down to the beach and whistled. Rainbow, the hippocampus, burst out of the waves. The two of them rode off together into the realm of Poseidon. 

Once they were gone, he looked down at his new wristwatch. He pressed the button and the shield spiraled out to full size. Hammered into the bronze were pictures in Ancient Greek style, scenes from their adventures this summer. 

There was Percy fighting the bronze bulls on Half-Blood Hill, Annabeth proudly driving their chariot, Tyson riding Rainbow toward the Princess Andromeda, the CSS Birmingham blasting its cannons at Charybdis. He ran a hand across a picture of Tyson, battling the Hydra as he held aloft a box of Monster Donuts. 

He knew Tyson would have an awesome time under the ocean, but Percy would miss him anyways. The cabin had felt so much more… full with him around, and everything just seemed easier knowing there was someone else as screwed-over by Poesidon as he was. 

Percy tangled his fingers in the charms on his left arm, the colors all awful and clashing, but the hard plastic digging into his skin in a way that lightened the weight in his chest. 

“Hey, Percy,” came a voice from behind him. 

Annabeth and Grover were standing at the top of the sand dune. He was still blinking some wayward tears from his eyes, and turned to face away from them again. 

“Tyson… he had to...” 

“We know,” Annabeth said softly. “Chiron told us.” 

“Cyclopes forges.” Grover shuddered. “I hear the cafeteria food there is terrible! Like, no enchiladas at all.” 

Annabeth held out her hand. “Come on, Seaweed Brain. Time for dinner.” 

They walked back toward the dining pavilion together, just the three of them, like old times. Just for that night, his friends ignored the rules to sit with him at Cabin Three’s table. 

A storm raged that night, but it parted around Camp Half-Blood as storms usually did. Lightning flashed against the horizon, waves pounded the shore, but not a drop fell in their valley. They were protected again, thanks to the Fleece, sealed inside the magical borders. 

Still, his dreams were restless. He heard Kronos taunting him from the depths of Tartarus:  _ Polyphemus sits blindly in his cave, young hero, believing he has won a great victory. Are you any less deluded?  _ The titan’s cold laughter filled the darkness. 

Then his dream changed. He was following Tyson to the bottom of the sea, into the court of Poseidon. It was a radiant hall filled with blue light, the floor cobbled with pearls. And there, on a throne of coral, sat his father, dressed like a simple fisherman in khaki shorts and a sun-bleached t-shirt. Percy looked up into his tan weathered face, his deep green eyes, and he spoke two words:  _ Brace yourself. _

Percy woke with a start. It was early - very early. The sun wasn’t even up just yet. But he got up anyways, putting on a pair of sneakers, and grabbing a spare blanket to take outside. Something in the air had changed, and he knew it was time to go visit Thalia’s tree. 

Annabeth was on guard duty that night, he knew, protecting the Fleece. He found her standing vigil, in the brisk air of not-quite day. He sat down at the base of the tree, and threw the blanket over his shoulders, holding it open on one side in a silent invitation. She must’ve been tired, because she just silently sat down, gripping her half of the blanket tightly in one hand, celestial bronze knife in the other. 

All was quiet for maybe ten minutes. Then the glint of the Fleece caught his attention in the corner of his eye - and by the time he’d glanced back to the horizon ahead of them, Annabeth was shaking his shoulder incessantly, words having left her. 

There, lying not two feet away from them, was Thalia Grace. Unconscious, but otherwise no different from the day she’d died: built like a long distance runner, lithe and strong, and wearing clothes that were somewhere between punk and Goth - a black T-shirt, black tattered jeans, and a leather jacket with buttons from a bunch of bands he’d never listened to. 

Annabeth hovered over her old friend, blanket abandoned as her hands hovered warily above the sleeping girl. Percy sighed, but stood and moved over to wrap the blanket around Thalia instead, propping her up against the now fully-healed tree. 

It wasn’t too long before another member of the night patrol stopped by to trade posts, and was quickly sent off to inform Chrion; so just as dawn was breaking, the whole camp seemed to stir. Word was spreading. A few campers were making their way toward the hill well before the camp counselor probably even knew the situation, satyrs and nymphs and heroes in a weird mix of armor and pajamas. 

He heard the clop of horse hooves, and Chiron galloped up to them, looking grim. “Is it true?” he asked. 

Percy nodded. The storm had broken and the sky was bloodred. 

“Curse the titan lord,” Chiron said. “He’s tricked us again, given himself another chance to control the prophecy… the Fleece did its work too well.” 

Annabeth stood to face Chiron, stuttering: ““It… she... just suddenly there...” 

Grover came running up beside Chiron, and just stood there gaping. “It’s true,” he said, panting from his run up the hill. “I can’t believe…” 

Nobody else came close to Thalia. Percy put his hand on her forehead. Her skin was cold, but his fingertips tingled as if they were burning. “She needs nectar and ambrosia,” he muttered, looking to Chiron. 

No one moved, not even Chiron. They were all too stunned. Then the girl took a shaky breath. She coughed and opened her eyes. Her irises were startlingly blue - electric blue. For a painful few seconds, he was reminded of Jason. 

Thalia stared at him in bewilderment, shivering and wild-eyed. “Who-” 

“I’m Percy,” he said. “You’re going to be alright.” 

“Strangest dream ...” 

“It’s okay.” 

“Dying.”

“I know. Do you remember your name?” 

A moment of pause, as she stared into his eyes - searching for something she probably wouldn’t find. Finally, she said: “I am Thalia, daughter of Zeus.”

Percy laughed, a mix of sad, nostalgic, and slightly hysterical. This was all  _ happening, _ and when he was barely awake enough to deal with it.

“Percy Jackson, son of Poesidon. Nice to meet you.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
